‘Maria’ now lives in a Pinoy ‘barrio’

Angel Aquino

“Maria La Del Barrio” was a hit Mexican soap opera that caught the fancy of viewers all over the globe. And now, it’s the latest telenovela to be transposed, translated and adapted to the Philippine setting. It started telecasting August 15 on ABS-CBN, so we caught its first episode, the better to see how it’s been “tweaked” to appeal to local viewing preferences.

Like most teleseryes, the localized “Maria” starts its storytelling with the title character’s parents, played by Assunta de Rossi and Ian Veneracion. They love each other, but the similarly beautiful Angel Aquino’s character wants Ian for herself, so she masterminds a scheme that robs Assunta of the inheritance she’s been banking on to start her new life with Ian.

Now impoverished, the couple get into a car accident and Assunta is injured so seriously, she has to undergo a very pricey operation to save her life. Ian begs the wealthy Angel to lend him the money. She retorts that she’ll give it to him—provided he leaves Assunta and marries her (cue dramatic musical stinger here)!

To make things worse, after Assunta finally recovers and leaves the hospital, she learns that Ian and Angel are about to get married, so she rushes to the wedding venue—just in time to see her lover and his far-from-innocent bride (beaming like a cat who’s just eaten the canary) pledging their troth. Oooh, that hurts!

Given all of these hyper-melodramatic highlights in just the series’ first telecast, we can surmise that the localized “Maria” will be quite an “eventful” show. That’s fine with us, because we like our storytelling brisk and even bouncy, especially since we know that we’re in for months and months of plot and character upheavals—so we’d better be assured of an eventful ride!

Also a promising sign is the proficiency of the three main players who’ve been introduced so far. Assunta used to be a popular movie star until she opted to get married, so it’s heartening to see that she’s facing the camera again, even if “only” in a TV soap. She’s still lovely and has learned to act, so she definitely shouldn’t be put on the shelf just yet.

Angel has always been lovely, but we used to have problems with her wan and vapid performances. Well, after being in the biz for years, she’s finally learned how to energize her portrayals, so she has become quite a proficient performer.

It would be better of course, if she could come up with a brilliant portrayal this time around, but teleseryes  don’t exactly welcome that “deep” an attack, so “proficient” is fine with us for now. At least, she’s no longer boring to watch.

As for Ian, we’ve always been plugging for producers to cast him in their projects, because he’s become an exceptional leading man who isn’t given the importance he deserves. Maybe because he got married rather early?

Yes, he may be “taken,” but he’s still tall, good-looking, has become quite an insightful actor and his “dramatic” eyes are among the most arresting pairs of sinew orbs around—and he knows how to use them for best effect.

It’s good to see, therefore, that “Maria” is giving him a major role to play, and we hope that, after the title character grows up, he won’t be relegated to “supporting” or “occasionally  appearing” status. Well, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, because Angel’s character now has him in her clutches, and she sure won’t give him up to Assunta without an all-out, protracted, mega-super-über catfight.