Plobaireacht

a vocab word that’s a skill you can learn.

…in acting school, no less.

Actually this word isn’t technically referring to the skill I’m going to talk about. Plobaireacht actually means attempting to speak whilst crying, and failing to do so. What I’m talking about is a type of physical training ( even more than emotional/psychological), where you can learn to cry and continue to speak clearly through it. At least, in my experience, it’s more the one than the other. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

From: well from what I can gather, this Irish word is where the English ‘blubber’ comes from—not the whale fat, but the mode of speech. It’s pronounced very similarly.

Quit Yer Plobaireachting

I saw a tweet awhile back wherein they were marveling at Renee Zellweger and Adam Driver being able to speak whilst crying (I think it was of a clip from Marriage Story? Does that sound right?)—the tweeter was like, Wow that’s Oscar winning quality acting right there! That they can actually cry, but still talk—like, those are real tears! How do they do that?!

That's a pretty basic acting skill, actually—one that’s learnable. It’s not some kind of magical authenticity because brilliant, it’s a combination of breath control and diction training, along with the psychological acting craft. Which is a craft. An artifice. Does this make it bad? No. Again, this is getting back to my gripes about the fallacy of realism = quality that we can see everywhere in the performing arts. It’s a false equivalency, and explaining that this is a part of a craft that can be learned feels to laypeople like a betrayal. How dare I declare that it isn’t ‘real’ (whatever that means)? But being skilled isn’t being false. Being good at an art (an artifice, even) doesn’t mean being good at lying. Having the skill doesn’t negate having the authenticity.

I talk about this concept in my Realism / Method duo of articles, focusing on what Method acting and Reality TV in particular have done to the perceived standards of what makes for good acting. Here’s a couple chunks, but I highly recommend reading those entire pieces if you want more in-depth discussion of this. Here’s a couple quotes from the latter article specifically about this false equivalence:

“The false equivalency of artifice to lies means that performing arts are being undercut. Artists today either need to show that their art is somehow real, or they need to be ‘good’ enough to fool the audience … But fooling the audience is lying to them, making them feel stupid. Nobody wants to feel stupid. And so, here we are.”

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”Myth: you can’t be ‘artificial’ and also ‘authentic.’ Of course any trained actor will tell you that of course you can be both—that’s what good acting is. This myth also means that artists who don’t know any better will eschew editing/revising/rehearsing, because to do those things is to take away the authenticity or heart of the art. It doesn’t actually do this, obviously; [eradicating revision] just makes for bad technique and therefore bad art. I’ve written about this concept a few times before, notably in ‘Actually, Don’t’ and ‘Discipline.’”

It not being ‘real’ doesn’t make it not authentic. But art that is incomprehensible isn’t art; it’s therapy. Collapsing into a deeply emotional slobbering mess might feel cathartic to the person doing it, but why should anyone else be watching it? That ain’t art, and it certainly ain’t good art.

The Play’s the Thing

There’s an old BBC series from the ‘80s called Playing Shakespeare, wherein brilliant RSC founder director John Barton leads some of the very best British actors through a bunch of workshoppy bits of Shakespeare, teaching viewers how it all works. It’s a really fun series to watch, perhaps especially if you haven’t taken an acting class before, I imagine—you can get a real taste of what kind of work goes into acting training. Plus, it’s super fun to see incredible actors we all know and love so well (like Ben Kingsley, Ian McKellen, David Suchet, and Patrick Stewart), in the mid-’80s, basically in an acting class. 

In all 9 episodes the series demonstrates how a balance needs to be found between the profound emotional work of modern Realism and being able to speak Shakespearean verse clearly enough that an audience can not only understand said words, but even get caught up in the moment and be moved by them.

Episode 6 in particular does a deep dive into how an actor can achieve that balance, by having the actors focus solely on the realistic emotional quality, and then pull it way back into a non-emotional focus; a coolness of performing the words alone. Throughout the episode, it’s apparent that the cooler the delivery, the more the words themselves ‘do most of the work’ of not only conveying meaning, but invoking an emotional response. At about 17:10ish, Barton describes how, if an actor is fully carried away with his emotion (actually weeping and etc.) it actually is likely to move the audience less than if he maintains a modicum of control. Barton calls it the ‘naturalistic fallacy.’ 

When you watch Barton put his actors through their paces in this episode, you can see a little of the process of how one learns how to do this balancing act. Of course, these actors are all already well trained—this is why he can have them do all these different things and they can comply and experiment so readily. But you can clearly see what I’m talking about. Look at the Hotspur speech moment in particular: see how the actor’s ultra-realistic portrayal first is not only exhausting to listen to, but the emotional connection is just not there. You can’t understand what he’s saying, it’s hard to watch and you can hear how it’s tearing up the actor’s voice too. It’s what pioneer theatre movement guru Jerzy Grotowski called a ‘wet rag.’ The second time the actor does the monologue, you can see it’s not like he’s having the character forget he’s hurt, or he’s lying, or not authentically portraying the part. On the contrary, he’s actually nailing Hotspur way more realistically by acting way less realistically.

An addiction to ‘authenticity’ (again: whatever that means) makes for a sloppy, unskilled performance, and I argue it’s not just old or formal language that needs this balance. Back in my mid-20s, I was in a strange play called Me & Jezebel, for which role I learned how to smoke a cigarette. Good thing my character was supposed to look awkward doing it—I was never a cool-looking smoker, even when I took it up myself. But there was one monologue I had, during which I talked about my grandmother who’d passed away, a lesson she’d taught me, and how much I missed her. Remember: I was a n00b at smoking. So there I was, sitting in that chair, lit cigarette in my fingers, elbows on knees, theatre ventilation going strong. I looked down in my emotional indication of sadness, and what do you know? That cigarette smoked directly into my eyes. Later, a reviewer praised my excellent acting in that moment. So what do you think? Did that smoke help my acting? In other performances when my eyes weren’t watering from the smoke, was that sad moment better or worse? More or less ‘real’? 

Kundalini Ain’t Just a Snake in India

If you’re actually blubbering in a scene, it’s only a matter of breath control to speak through the plobaireacht. There are a few different techniques to do so, many of which are variations or adaptations on old yoga or martial arts breathwork. Imagining breathing all the way down (and up) the spine, using vocals to resonate sound into various body parts, and exercising the tongue and jaw along with supple spine techniques, all go together to keep the voice supported even when the tears come. And the Zen-like control over the breath is one way to help when the choppy sobbing starts, which it does if one is doing authentic emotional work. In college, I was taught a system called Linklater, and when I later taught theatre classes, I added Lessac to that mix, along with yogic and martial arts control ways. Learning to sing is another good way to learn this kind of breath control, and most actors (especially those classically trained) will also have some singing education under their diaphragm.

I have a sinking feeling, though, that in this age of AI being slung around everywhere, that the misguided sense of betrayal and ‘naturalistic fallacy’ I’ve been discussing above will only get worse. And Reality TV is going nowhere, apparently, though some of the AI-related scandals surrounding such are popping up like acne these days. I guess we shall see. Take a deep breath.

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I thought I’d embed the episode (‘Passion & Coolness’) in full here at the end, too, in case you want to watch it immediately. But if you haven’t seen this series before (especially if you’re not a trained actor yourself), I very highly recommend starting from Episode 1. It’s called ‘The Two Traditions,’ and they introduce the fundamental differences in modern vs. classical acting. The whole series is free on YouTube.