Last night’s production of Spider-Man was terrible enough, but it was made worse by the most bizarre experience I have ever had with an audience member at the theater.

Our tickets were in the second-to-last row of the balcony. We took our seats at about 7:50. A few minutes after we sat down, a family came and sat down next to Matt: a man, a woman, and two boys. The woman took the seat next to Matt. Dark hair, probably in her late 30s.

The show still hadn’t started, so the woman began chatting with us. That was fine, although we were both fiddling with our phones and trying to check into the theater on Foursquare. After a little small talk, we both turned back to our phones. But she kept chatting.

“Happy Hanukkah!” she said to us. “You guys are Jewish, right?”

I said that I was but that Matt that wasn’t. It was a little awkward; you shouldn’t really try to guess what religion someone is.

And then she said, “Is there an extra night of Hanukkah this year?”

Um, what?

“No, it always has eight nights,” I said.

“There’s no extra night because it’s not a leap year,” Matt said jokingly.

“Oh, my son told me that sometimes it has an extra night. I guess he was tricking me!”

Then she pointed out some of the lighting equipment toward the sides of the theater and said how neat it looked.

It was then that I noticed she had a beverage with her. It was a smoothie in a plastic cup, or at least it looked like a smoothie. I realized that this woman was either drunk out of her mind or just bonkers.

Then one of the producers walked out onto the stage and welcomed us to the show. He told the audience to remember that it was a preview, and also not to take photos, recordings, all that usual stuff, and to enjoy the show. He left the stage and the lights went down and the show started.

But the woman wouldn’t be quiet. She kept oohing and aahing and pointing at the stage and saying, “Wowwwwww!” and “Look at that!” and throwing up her hands and swaying like she was at a rock concert. It was annoying and a little distracting, but I decided to ignore her because the show wasn’t very good anyway and it was mostly loud enough to drown her out.

But a group of college girls sitting in front of us started turning around and looking at her, and I heard the people behind us start to talk about her too.

At one point the woman took out her cell phone and took a picture, which had been specifically prohibited, of course.

And then… she started singing along with the music.

That was it. I leaned across Matt and said to the woman, sternly, “Excuse me, would you please be quiet?” She looked at me. I said, “Seriously. Please be quiet.” I think I embarrassed Matt a little bit. It was hard to return my focus to the stage because I don’t like having to confront people and I was feeling a little uncomfortable now.

The show continued, and so did the woman’s antics. Finally, near the end of the first act, she pulled out her camera again. And this time she stood up to try to take pictures, and she was unsteady on her feet. She was totally blocking the view of the people sitting behind her. That was the last straw. Matt and I both yelled at her, actually yelled, and told her to sit down. The music was blasting, so only the people immediately nearby heard our confrontation.

I said to her, “You’re ruining the show! You’ve been talking the entire time!”

“What are you talking about? I’ve barely said ten words!”

“Are you kidding me? You’ve been making noise during the whole show!” And then I said angrily, “Sober up!”

“I’m not even drinking, you weirdo,” she said. And then again, “You’re a weirdo!”

Five minutes later the first act ended, and Matt and I immediately got out of our seats and went to find some ushers. We told them there was a crazy woman sitting next to us in seat G106 who was drunk and making noise and standing up and taking photos.

“Yeah, I saw a flash, but I wasn’t sure who it was,” one of the ushers said.

“Well, she’s totally ruining the show,” I said. “Not that it’s a very good show anyway, but still –”

“Well I don’t have anything to say about that,” the usher said awkwardly, “but we’ll see what’s going on and we’ll eject her if we need to.”

When we went back to our seats, the whole family was… gone. Their coats were gone, too. Dad and the kids must have realized they needed to get her out of there.

We started commiserating with the people around us. The college girls in front of us said that the woman’s kids had kept telling her to be quiet. That made me feel better — at least it wasn’t just me and Matt. But I felt bad for her family.

Then the people behind us said to us, “Was that woman with you?”

“No,” I said. “She just sat down before the show and started talking with us!”

Thankfully, they didn’t return, so we got to watch the second act without disruption, atrocious as it was.

Between the terrible show and the crazy lady, it was just a bizarre fucking night at the theater.