Voice Kids champ Lyca passes first acting challenge

MALOU de Guzman (left) and Lyca Gairanod both did well in the mini-bio.

Now that “The Voice: Kids” champion Lyca Gairanod has become the toast of local show biz, producers are wondering if, like Nora Aunor before her, Lyca is not just a good singer but an all-around performer as well. Will she turn out to be a good actress?

If so, an entire second career can productively and profitably open up for her, so a lot could be riding on the answer to that key question!

Challenging scenes

Well, last Aug. 16, on “Maalaala Mo Kaya” Lyca played herself in the weekly drama anthology’s bio-drama on her young life thus far—and aside from singing a number of songs, she was also involved in challenging scenes. The good news is, she generally did well in them, coming up with believable emotions and not acting like a thespic house on fire.

Whoever mentored her in her first outing as an actress should be credited for helping her keep her emotions focused and in check, despite the usual temptation to turn on the “waterworks” in full force, to impress and astound the viewing public.

If Lyca maintains this believability and focus in her next portrayals, she could eventually make a convincing mark not just as a singer, but as a standout TV-film-stage thespian, as well. Hope springs!

No exaggeration

As for the “MMK” episode as a whole, its first half fared well for the most part, since it came up with dramatic information before Lyca joined “The Voice: Kids.” Her impoverished family’s financial and medical travails were believably and empathetically made to tug at viewers’ heartstrings without having to inordinately exaggerate the harsh realities and extreme emotions involved.

Aside from Lyca, Malou de Guzman also did well as her mother, whose initially negative view of life psychologically limited the little singer’s options and prospects.

Indeed, it was moving to see that it was the determined and livewire girl who boosted her mother’s hopes, instead of the other way around!

Anticlimactic

However, when “The Voice: Kids” entered the picture, with actual footage from the competition edited into the mini-bio’s progression, the storytelling lost some of the freshness that its first half had. Since viewers already knew how things would turn out, the second half’s “empathy factor” dipped, and the show’s expectedly happy and even triumphant ending was rather anticlimactic.

In the future, therefore, well-known “success” dramas of this sort should make it a point to speed up their denouement, instead of “documenting” it in detail, as the Lyca episode does.

Strong showcase

Seen as a whole, however, the “MMK” bio-drama came off feelingly and well, and the strong showcase that it provided for Lyca as a child actress adds to our “hopeful suspicion” that, in due time, she could indeed reveal herself to be “the new Nora Aunor”!