Stuck in a comfortable rut

Performing is a profitable profession, but some stars get so cozily entrenched in the biz that they eventually find themselves stuck in a rut. The offers may continue to come, but most of them typecast veteran performers in pretty much the same kind of role, due to producers and talent casters’ mistaken notion that viewers like seeing stars again and again in their “signature” roles or character types.

One of the popular luminaries currently stuck in “sexy comedienne” roles is Rufa Mae Quinto. Aside from the long-running “Bubble Gang,” she appears nightly on the fantasy soap “Daldalita,” where she’s cast as the show’s sexy villainess—but, with a comedic twist to her characterization.

On the soap, her “funny” gambits include “ispokening English” and making mistakes that, as local show biz lore has it (after you, Jimmy Santos and many others), are hilariously droll.

Of course, the actress’ villainous portrayal loses a lot of its bile and bite due to its comic coloration but that doesn’t seem to bother the show, as it goes on its merry and self-contradictory way to la-la-land.

Rufa Mae does better on “Bubble Gang,” where she’s had years to fine-tune her “bimbo” portrayal to the point where she can probably do it in her sleep. Indeed, at times her performance is so knee-jerk and pushbutton that she could be taking a few hush-hush tiddlywinks while doing it.

Aside from the fact that over-familiarity breeds boredom, we hope that an intrepid producer gives Rufa Mae something else to do. We believe that, under all that “automatic” sexiness and patented daftness and cluelessness, the actress has it in her to surprise viewers—and perhaps even herself. All it would take to effect the radical shift is a role that would require her to tap into yet unexplored areas of her performing psyche.

Older comediennes have shown the way, like Carmi Martin and Eugene Domingo. Carmi used to be a “sexy comedienne” type years ago, but in the popular hit, “No Other Woman,” she played a mother with “bite” and “sass,” and pithy one-liners that viewers lapped up—and she became current again.

Eugene isn’t the “sexy” type, but she illustrates how a comedienne who keeps revealing new aspects to her performing persona can belatedly rise to the heights of stardom, and stay there—thanks to varied roles that require her to keep testing her limits, both as a funny girl and as a “serious” performer.

Given the right range of roles and encouragement, Rufa Mae can similarly shine. Won’t somebody give her a chance to get out of the comfortable rut she’s in and prove her real range and worth?

That plea, by the way, goes double and triple for other stars who have also been typecast in roles that have limited their growth and ability to show their versatility.

They include Janno Gibbs, Eula Valdez, Robin Padilla, Caridad Sanchez,  Roderick Paulate, Ariel Rivera, Sarah Geronimo, Jean Garcia, Phillip Salvador, Pokwang and Cherie Gil.