Jericho’s portrayal galvanizes new drama series

JERICHO Rosales

JERICHO Rosales’ new TV starrer “Magpahanggang Wakas” is turning out to be an eventful viewing experience, based on the drama series’ first three telecasts.

Right off the bat, its male protagonist, portrayed with feeling and insight by Jericho, wins viewers’ attention and empathy with his basic goodness, which is all too soon tested by many plot twists and convolutions that include the cruel cooption of his greatest love, played by Arci Muñoz.

Her own love for him is absolute, but she’s desired by her foster mother’s lover, forcing her to decide to flee with Jericho. Before that can happen, however, the dastardly interloper makes his evil move, there’s a desperate struggle, and Jericho accidentally kills him.

A bribed judge rules against Jericho and he ends up in prison, where he’s beaten up and forced to join an in-house crime cabal.

For her part, Arci is similarly forced to “sell” herself to pay for Jericho’s legal bills. Is there any hope at all that these two “doomed” lovers will ever find happiness in each other’s arms again?

It’s an old, cold story that’s been told many times, but our hope lies in the fresh and felt details that this series’ storytelling occasionally provides.

Best of all, Jericho’s natural, believable and insightful portrayal lifts the series up to a higher level.

Arci does well enough, but it’s the series’ male lead’s galvanizing performance that gives it true grit and organic thespic value.

What spells the big difference? Aspiring actors should watch Jericho’s performance daily and learn: He’s an exceptional actor, because he knows that for viewers to believe and care about what his character is experiencing, the actor first has to believe in it himself.

More than just his mind “understanding” factors like situation and motivation, Jericho’s heart has to come to an emotional understanding of what makes his character tick.

After this happens, it has to affect and “take over” his entire body, so he’s living and breathing with his character—or the character is living and breathing through him.

What does it take for that thespic fusion and fission to happen—self-hypnotism? Transference of psychic fluids? No need to get so clinically complicated!

What’s important is that the actor understands and empathizes with his assigned characters so completely and insightfully that he can generously “lend” his own feelings to him for the scenes at hand.

That’s not an easy thespic feat to pull off, which is why we have only a few really good young-adult actors like Jericho around.

It’s particularly difficult to find on the local TV-film scene, because stars are trained to focus on and value themselves, not the characters they’re assigned to play.

So, they end up portraying minor variations on their own persona, which makes their performances ultimately limited, shallow and boring.

Exceptions to the desultory rule like Jericho don’t think of themselves, only of the characters they play. So, they are different from role to role and can enjoy long and productive careers, because they don’t repeat themselves.