The Art of Entertaining – Blurb #1
When I walked out of The Met, I couldn’t help but notice that everyone was gathered around the staircase in one corner. There were two people addressing the crowd. It didn’t look like anything special but everyone was captivated by their presence. Watching their performance gave me the feeling of watching aspiring actors. They clearly practiced their routine many times before taking it to the street. Their words and movement flowed as if they were totally in sync with each other. They were jumping from place to place and involving the audience. They were prepared to adapt to anything that was thrown their way. They planned out their dialogue, yet played it like the words were just coming to them. They pumped up their performance (jumping over a line of people) but always held back until people donated more money. People paid because they wanted to know what would happen next. They wanted to see what these two had prepared for them. These two are no Elvis and Costello, but they managed to capture the audience as well as accomplish their goal…make some money while entertaining. I credit them for managing to grab the attention of hundreds of people by sharing their simple, yet artistic performance/persuasion. They may be aspiring actors/performers but they managed to get people to pay to watch them perform.