When stars play ‘versatility’ card too unselectively

MERCADO. Daunting thespic challenge

Some show biz stars concentrate on what they do best, like acting, singing or dancing, and leave other performing skills to people who are better at them.

These days, however, it’s trendy for performers to try to do just about everything that’s thrown their way, sometimes with unconvincing or off-putting results. Witness the case of musically limited stars who try to sing, not just in public, but even in huge arenas like the Smart Araneta Coliseum!
Then, there are singers like Jennylyn Mercado who have successfully carved out side careers as dramatic actors and TV program hosts—again, with phlegmatic or unconvincing results.

Jennylyn’s latest thespic assignment is a particularly huge challenge for her to pull off: In her latest TV series, “Rhodora X,” she portrays an unfortunate woman who has multiple personalities struggling for dominance within her troubled psyche.

Sticky situations

At first glance, she’s nice and tractable—but, when her other persona acts up, she gets all sensuous and hot, cluelessly getting involved in sticky situations and even crimes!

Now, we know that such bi- or multipolar personalities do exist—but, the character shifts involved are hardly as “efficiently” automatic as Jennylyn makes them come off.

Of late, the actress’ thespic challenge has gotten even more daunting, with the belated introduction of a third persona who’s now struggling for her own space within the series’ title character. Make no mistake, we appreciate all the hard work that Jennylyn is obviously devoting to her difficult scenes.

Just last week, we caught her in a very long sequence in which all three of her split personalities were insisting on emerging, one after the other, and Jennylyn gave the “instant” character shifts everything she had! But, the effect was less than convincing, because the shifts felt too “pushed.”’

Less successful attempts

Another star who’s playing the “versatility” card too unselectively is Iza Calzado. She’s become a proficient actress and looks really good, but is less successful at her recent attempts at TV hosting.

Like many stars-turned-hosts, Iza appears to think that looking and sounding good, being cheerful, reading her spiels well and being able to ad-lib a little are enough for the new task at hand. Unfortunately, exceptional TV hosts need to come up with more than that.

First off, they have to be interesting and even idiosyncratic personalities in their own right. Next, they have to be not just interesting, but also genuinely interested in the guests they interact with on their shows.

At the moment, Iza is ready and willing, but not yet able to rise to the hosting challenge with sufficient vim and vitality. She isn’t light and effervescent enough in projection, and performs her tasks dutifully rather than with spontaneous wit and humor.

If she realizes that scripted spiels are only the springboard, not the essence of good program hosting, she should markedly improve.