Cue Tears: On the Act of Crying by Daniel Sack (review)

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• Cue Tears: On the Act of Crying by Daniel Sack
• Peta Tait (bio)

Daniel Sack. Cue Tears: On the Act of Crying. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2024. Pp. 214 pages + 13 photos. $80.00 hardback, $29.95 paperback, $29.95 eBook.

Cue Tears poses fundamental questions about human expression and communication through a discussion of crying and tears in the visual and performing arts, particularly in theatrical performance. “How do performers cue their tears?”, and “What does it mean to witness another crying?” As Daniel Sack points out in his thoughtful, wide-ranging, and engaging discussion, crying and tears are not the same, although they often coincide. The use of breath and voice to cry may suffice on stage whether tears flow or not, but a camera close-up expects tears. Sack astutely explores the rich social and philosophical domain of crying and tears and the ways in which these can range from an appreciation of the sincerity of the theatrical purpose to recognition of duplicitous persuasion. Sack describes the uncertainty surrounding tears for an actor, since they are not easily willed, and claims, “My tears act alongside me” (2). His book is personal and remembered as well as well-researched and persuasive, and his thinking about tears has much to offer performance studies as well as a wider readership.

The type of theoretical questions asked by those of us with a background in acting do often differ. An actor knows that emotional expression is central to all performance and that its challenges are so often overlooked in reception. Emotions are an expressive hurdle that every performer must repeatedly manage and audiences look for as indicators of value. For example, the problem of performing pain and sadness to have an effect presumes some crying and/or tears. But then, as Sack explains, crying can mean howling in pain or in laughter, and tears might arise from frustration.

If crying is a dynamic expressive process, tears are the visual cue that is assumed to resonate with perceptions of actual feeling. Both are theatrically meaningful and therefore assumed to be indicators of feeling. Contradictions abound, however, when tears are indicators of honesty and authenticity and assumed to reveal much more than speech can explain. The Introduction to Cue Tears succinctly raises these complexities and their implications within an overview of thinking about tears.

The crying of a baby might suggest that humans are hard-wired to respond to crying if not also tears. Sack accepts that tears “cue” responses in others, sometimes intensely. They reveal hidden depths of a person—or do they? Tears are bodily processes whether from the stirring of memories about past events or the cutting of an onion. But some people cry more easily than others and for science. Sack turns to his scientist father, Robert, to ask about his career studying tears. There is a dialogue between them that gradually confirms that while science [End Page 498] can study the chemical composition of tears and their physiology, it is not easily able to explain how they are emotionally generated. Tears invite philosophical examination.

A capacity to show tears within fictional circumstances is assumed to denote the substance of acting. Artificial stimulants can be used. Do artificial tears “metonymically represent the art of acting,” as Sack suggests (99)? Yet an absence of tears can equally evoke a felt response in audiences and reflect a Stanislavski-influenced adage that “holding back” can have a powerful effect.

Sack drills down on the meanings of crying and tears. He unpeels numerous possibilities—like the proverbial onion layers that he recognises are used to tear-up in acting. A performance of tears evokes tears in someone watching which, in turn, can stir actual tears in the actor. Alternatively, tears can be disruptive through an inappropriate display. I agree with Sack that emotional feeling surrounds language and constantly defies the effort to put it into words; that is, an emotional feeling such as love or fear is a dynamic process that defies objectification. I follow his argument that tears “contest” knowledge and reason (142), although I still think his intriguing claim continues to implicate language. The significance and the...