Dramatic highlight staged–and found wanting

Ongoing teleseryes are melodramatically constructed to end on an emotional high point each evening—and unleash an especially stunning revelation each Friday, to make viewers determined to find out how it pans out the following week.

Those particularly “high and deep” emotional moments require a series’ stars to come up with fiercely felt performances to do full justice to what their assigned characters are feeling—and being subjected to.

Unfortunately, some actors are unable to rise to the heightened occasion, opting to “underplay” instead of meeting the emotional challenges head-on, so that viewers can empathetically and viscerally experience the tests and travails that their favored protagonists are going through.

This month, the actors who have sadly fallen short of the mark are led by Coco Martin as Cardo, the other twin in “Ang Probinsyano.”

The actor’s insufficient thespic “moment” came when he was told that his courageous twin, Ador, had died on a mission, killed by rivals envious of his clear ascendancy in the police force.

Shocking revelation

When Cardo (Coco) was told that his long-lost twin had died, we expected him to be moved to the core of his being—but, the actor simply “took” the shocking revelation quietly and “manfully.” Was this a case of delayed reaction that Coco would make up for in a succeeding scene?

A number of sequences later, we realized that the “deep” moment we were hoping for wouldn’t be forthcoming, and we were disappointed—not just for us, but also for him.

This “underplaying” and “manly” approach is OK when the emotional revelation or provocation isn’t major, but it really begs—and beggars—the question when the new plotting “information” being supplied is profound.

Coco is by no means the only local actor to mistake underplaying for good and “subtle” acting. For many years, Piolo Pascual’s own reputation as an exceptional actor was also compromised by his relative lack of emotional commitment and depth in key dramatic moments.

Happily for him and for us, in only the last couple of years, Piolo has finally seen the light in this regard, and has been coming up with deeper, more committed and expressive—and thus better portrayals that have greatly enhanced his thespic worth and reputation.

When will Coco similarly see the light, bite the bullet, and go for depth over delicacy? It really is the right way to go, and we hope that he realizes it before his current TV series ends!