Masked Pianist

 

Once, I worked for an event organized by a cosmetics company. All the actors working for the event had to wear full-face masks—we had to hide our faces.

From the time the doors opened to the start of the performance, the director decided to play an album by Richard Clayderman, a great French pianist. There was a piano on the stage. The director had an idea and asked me, “Could you sit down in front of the piano and pretend that you are playing it?”

I can’t play a piano, but I am an actor; I could act as if I were.

There was a buffet at the venue. The cosmetics company must have been rich—the food looked delicious.

While I was pretending to play the piano, I noticed some people looking at me enthusiastically. They ignored the food and really paid attention to me. Some of them even whispered, “What a great pianist!”

They really assumed I was playing the piano. My fingers were hidden their view. In reality, I never even touched the piano.

Of course, it was a great pianist. The music was played by Richard Clayderman himself. But we were just playing his CD. The audience must have thought “This pianist on the stage can play the piano as well as Richard Clayderman, but he is playing at this small event in this local city! For some reason, he needs to hide his real face! What happened to him?” They must have imagined a tragic, genius pianist under my mask.

I couldn’t stand it. If people started to pay too much attention to me, it could disturb the event.

It was against the director’s order, but I intentionally made a mistake: I explained “I am not playing this piano.”

The people said, “What the heck!” They no longer paid attention to me and went to the buffet. As an actor, I was sad to lose the audience’s attention. But at least the buffet was real.

After the event, I reported to the director, “As we expected, it was a failure.” The director laughed and said, “I knew it.”

Actors should not deceive audiences like this.

Picture by grandfailure