by Loretta Murphy-Birster

Created on: February 22, 2007   Last Updated: January 18, 2011

HOW TO CRY ON CUE

Crying, like laughing, is a spontaneous behavior precipitated by emotion. Emotions and their resultant behaviors cannot always be commanded either privately or public. They are no less difficult to produce on command as they are to stop once the floodgates open. How can the actor conjure them like the proverbial rabbit from the hat while onstage in front of an audience?

Acting is acting. While the actor wants to convey the essence of true emotion on stage, he or she does not want to lose total control. The line between portraying real emotion and the emotion itself is very fine. There must, for the actor, remain a thread by which the performance hangs. Controlled release would be a good way to describe what the performer must do to produce an effective staged cry.

One must remember that crying is a behavior not an emtion. Therefore putting onself in the correct emotional frame of mind can almost always produce the desired behavior.

Focus is a large part of this process. One cannot laugh if they are preoccuped with morose or depressive thoughts. Conversely, thinking about Chevy Chase doing pratfalls or Letterman's monologue last night is not the best way to generate a believable stage cry.

The most effective way I have found to cry on cue is to know and understand yourself and what makes you cry in real life. Is it remembering your grandmother who passed away ten years ago? Is it reliving the birth of your son or the moment you learned about the 9-11? For some, it can be as simple as recalling a poignant chapter in a favorite novel or the lyrics of a sentimental song.

It is necessary to develop a short list of what makes one cry and then keeping those precipitating emotional venues ready and available to call up when shortly before the cued crying must occur. It is important for the actor to be able to push almost all other thoughts - except their next cue or line - from their minds.

The trigger thought or image must then be concentrated on. The pure emotion of the moment must be viewed in the mind's eye and allowed to push all the emotional buttons that it can. If you have cried about the situation in real life, it is almost certain you will cry in a replay of the event.

Allow the emotional baggage you carry with you regarding the situation to weigh on you. Let your eyes feel the pain and sadness. Let the energy well up and course through your body. When you feel the wetness begin to build under your eyelids, play the whole scenario out in your mind.

Practice is certainly possible and encouraged. This is not something to try for the first time on opening night. Crying on cue must occur at rehersals - perhaps not every one initially, but certainly as the opening approaches, it should be able to be produced during every run through.

The experienced actor should have at least 4 or 5 scenerios he or she can fall back on for evoking both crying on cue as well as laughing on cue. Both behaviors must look natural and elicit an empathetic response from the audience as well as other actors. With practice, it will become easier and in time, as readily accessible as any other acting tool.

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