Anthology puts focus on livid melodrama

TOLENTINO. Strained believability.

The anthology-drama series, “Magpakailanman,” recently made its comeback on GMA 7, still with Mel Tiangco hosting, and it chose a particularly “controversial” story for its first episode, to make sure that its return to the small screen would be noticed by many viewers.

The conflict in question revolved around the difficult ethical predicament a mother (Lorna Tolentino) finds herself in that forces her to become an abortionist—and, worse, to compel her son (Renz Fernandez, Lorna’s real-life scion) to act as her assistant!

The production took great pains to establish the fact that Lorna’s family was so cash-strapped that she had no choice but to agree to abort babies, just to make ends meet.

Still, the episode’s focus on livid melodrama and “shock value” tended to rob it of the extra-clear thematic focus it needed to do full justice to the many profound ethical and moral issues that its lead character’s “extreme” dilemma stirred up.

As a result, the complex issues generally ended up being oversimplified, or upstaged by the emotional theatrics that were made to surround them.

The production similarly couldn’t resist the temptation to give its protagonist-antagonists overlong “arias” with which to further “hype up” their already strong thespic “moments.” Tolentino is a dependably judicious performer, but all those emotional high points that she was obliged to hit strained the otherwise admirable believability and congruence of her portrayal.

Her son Renz was also given many emotionally “extreme” scenes to do, but he opted to “underplay” them rather than go to town with them. In a sense, his decision was more artistically cogent than going all-out, as his coactors did.

Lesson

Unfortunately, he came off as a relatively cold rather than just judiciously cool performer. The lesson to be learned from all this? In a thespic situation where there’s a radical contrast in acting styles and options, the director should more assertively move to blend the differing portrayals into a unified whole—or else some players could end up being faulted for a valid acting choice that ends up second-best only due to unfair comparison.

All told, however, we’re glad that both Lorna and Renz have been given a strong acting showcase to remind viewers that they’re very much around. In particular, Renz deserves to be showcased because he’s the scion not just of Lorna Tolentino, but also of the late Rudy Fernandez.

If action movies were still the rage, he would surely be tapped by producers to star in a string of them. Since they’re no longer popular, however, he has to find his opportunities to prove his thespic mettle in dramatic vehicles, and that scene is currently overcrowded.

So, it’s good that “Magpakailanman” has given him his time to shine (again). Let’s hope that other director and producers were watching.