Ms. Mosco is an eager performer, maybe too much so for the loner O'Keeffe, who late in life found refuge in the isolated expanses of New Mexico.
As he traces his growth from youth to maturity, and his emergence from bookish introvert to eager performer, Mr. Plummer combines an easy erudition with a sense of affable humility as he recites selections from his favorite poets, loosely assembled as a journey from childhood to old age.
Yet there are gags and scraps of action that give the movie fits of buoyancy, and these tend to come not so much from the younger, eager performers as from the old hands.
Coffee, after all, "is the general Drink throughout Turky, and those Eastern Regions, and yet no part of the world can boast more able or eager performers, than those Circumcised Gentlemen".
But even outside of festival time you'll find eager performers in full swing in venues ranging from the cosmopolitan cool of the town's trendy Caravane Café (2bis Rue Qadi Ayad; 00 212 524 783111) to the ramshackle restaurants of the alleyway Rue El Khabbazine (near the jewellery souk), where local musicians take cheap tagine suppers.
In choosing Mr. Harris, an eager young performer who approaches the music not as a musty shrine but as a thriving art that he's still laboring to master, Mr. Scorsese has found a gently transfixing focal point for his film.
Played here with compelling energy by eager young performers, the work stood on its own much better.
The movie's principals — Jean Dujardin, as George Valentin, a swaggering silent-movie idol who is ruined by the advent of sound, and Bérénice Bejo, as Peppy Miller, the girl from nowhere who loves him and becomes a star herself — are eager, likable performers.
Star performers such as virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim were eager to perform her works in public.
Balanchine made her come to him, and consequently, instead of becoming a prima donna in love with her own mannerisms, she grew into a diligent performer eager to be challenged.
Vaudeville-inspired variety shows could be shot live with a minimum of inexpensive sets, and there was still a significant pool of vaudeville-trained performers eager to work again.
