Oh fancy Latin phrases are so cool!

Since I am, in general, as cool as say, John Travolta, who is indeed very high on the Cool-O-Meter, I must share  a cool Latin Phrase as well as a great concept for actors in this post. (I know, you are thinking, "he is so generous and kind, and he does all this for free, he is a saint!" You are correct.).

Via negativa (Negative Way) is actually a phrase use by theologians and religious people to present a way of describing God. Since God is in many religions considered undefinable, one way to think about what God is would be to list what he is not. If you list what God is not, then you have a good idea of what God is. Get it?

But we can use this same concept when dealing with acting and performing. We are presented with lines to read aloud, to present to an audience, how we say them tremendously impacts how they are received and how our character is formed. So the idea of via negativa, applied to an actor's lines, is to decide how NOT to deliver the line. In broad terms, take the line an deliver it in as many ways as possible, and eliminate the ones that don't work.

Let's look at a piece of Shakespeare for this idea. "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps  in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time.". OK, now to work, what if we rushed all the words together?  "Tomorrowandtomorrowandtomorrowcreepsinthispettypacefromdayto daytothelastsyllableofrecordedtime." Bad choice in most cases, so we eliminate that.  What if we made each and every word important, same length, emphasis, loudness, "TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW CREEPS IN THIS PETTY PACE FROM DAY TO DAY TO THE LAST SYLLABLE OF RECORDED TIME". Nah, that sounds to old fashioned and actorish. So we have eliminated 2 ways we might deliver the line, and perhaps we start to find the ways we can deliver it. Words are repeated, what if we emphasize them? "TOMORROW and TOMORROW, and TOMORROW creeps in this petty pace from DAY to DAY, to the last syllable of recorded time". That might be the reading you go with.

(And now, a quick suggestion from Ian McKellan, who says, try it this way, 'Tomorrow AND tomorrow, AND tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day"...Sir Ian suggests hitting the word AND could take the speech to a new meaning.)

Have some fun. Try lines in outrageous ways, like a little girl, like a lumberjack, like a gangster. By eliminating what does not work, you will soon narrow it down to what DOES work, and that will give you a starting point to the line readings that lay ahead.

J.T. Turner
The Actors Sensei


Acting classes for stage and screen.