Sandwich board of life and death
It was my fault, of course. If you walk through Lyttelton market wearing a sandwich board that announces in big black letters ‘‘Ask me about Life after Death in Invercargill’’ you are, if not inviting trouble, at least opening the door to the unusual.
I was handing out flyers for a show at the Lyttelton Arts Factory. It is a second play by Jane McLauchlan, and ever bit as funny, moving, local and lovely as her first.
Life after Death in Invercargill is the show’s subtitle and I chose those words for the market because I thought they might make people smile. Few nouns are as comic as Invercargill.
Being a show-off, I quite like selling, so long as I believe in the thing sold. On Pitt St in Sydney I once handed out flyers for a book of mine while wearing only underpants. The publicist later told me that she doubted the stunt sold a single copy, but she enjoyed the sight of people ducking into doorways to avoid me.
I know how they felt. When the supermarket entrance is blocked by a phalanx of charity muggers, advancing with fake bonhomie in the hope of signing me up, I sense an inner growl.
There are tricks to selling stuff. The first is to make eye contact. Some will shrink away in horror. Let them go. But if they take the flyer, keep a hold of it. Thus you and the mark are momentarily linked. This is the moment. Engage them now or lose them forever.
Ask them a question – when did you last go to live theatre? Or make the show special – it’s a world premiere. Or make them a promise – you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, or your money back. Above all make them smile. So mention Invercargill.
Some people promise to go to the show when you know they won’t. Others promise to consult their spouse when you know they won’t. Others yet pretend to be going on holiday for however long the show is on for. But some are genuinely grateful and the job is done.
What I had not reckoned with, however, was people taking the words on my back seriously. Written irony is perilous. Some took me for a street preacher and didn’t approve. I overheard the phrase ‘‘holy roller’’ and I am sure that I was meant to. Others took me for a street preacher and did approve. One man laid a hand on my forearm, leant into my ear and whispered, ‘‘We dwell among sinners.’’ He then gave me a smile that should debar him forever from working with children.
A few people, rather than asking me about life after death, chose to tell me about it. One lady told me that her late sister, from whom she’d been estranged, had become far more chatty once dead, and they were now reconciled. I asked how they communicated and she said, ‘‘Spiritually, you know.’’ She took a flyer for the show, but I fear it will have disappointed her.
My favourite interlocutor was an old lady in a coat. She prodded me in the kidneys to make me turn round, then jabbed at the words on my sandwich board. ‘‘I believe in that life after death stuff,’’ she said. She made it sound like a challenge.
Uncertain how to react I said, ‘‘So does the Queen of England,’’ which I was pleased with in the circumstances.
‘‘Perhaps,’’ she said darkly, but then added as if laying down the ace of trumps, ‘‘but I’m from Invercargill.’’