Their lives unfold like an opening credits montage for a popular television series. Outsiders: the waiter delivering a round of chocolate martinis to their table or the driver of the Checker who breaks their one hundred dollar bill, are afforded brief moments of intensity or bliss or concentration, just long enough for their name to appear below their face to identify them to the world.
But most of the time, they retreat behind the invisible fourth wall, keeping in character, reciting a script, always hitting their mark as the music swells.