John Lloyd Cruz’s best efforts come up short

When acclaimed actors like John Lloyd Cruz come up with a special dramatic showcase on anthology shows like “Maalaala Mo Kaya (MMK),” they serve notice that they’re attempting a particularly challenging and involving characterization that will affirm their supremacy over their peers.

True enough, on his recent outing on MMK, John Lloyd portrayed an unusually troubled and physically challenged young man who was deserted in childhood by his mother (Agot Isidro). She had psychological problems of her own to contend with, so she couldn’t help her son get over his trauma until he was belatedly reunited with her.

The role had all of the hallmarks of a major acting challenge and achievement, designed to add another bright feather to the actor’s thespic sombrero.

Unfortunately, the “finished product” of John Lloyd’s personification of the lead character of Tariq failed to live up to expectations. What happened?

John Lloyd gave the rigorous assignment everything he had, but his portrayal was compromised by several inhibiting factors: First, he was palpably too mature to play a student. Next, his character was played as a child in extensive scenes by another (juvenile) actor, so John Lloyd too often lost the drama’s central focus.

Verbose

Third, his dialogue was too verbose and “explicatory” to come off as naturally as it should have. He did manage to come up with a strikingly quiet and deep death scene, however.

JOHN Lloyd Cruz played an unusually troubled and physically challenged young man in MMK.

Aside from John Lloyd, his female costar, Kaye Abad, was also hamstrung by some contrary elements in the production. Most limiting of all was the episode’s concentration on John Lloyd’s character, with her role being given relatively short shrift. Since her character also suffered a lot as a result of his many problems, this was a patently unfair tack to take.

Abad is an exceptional actress in her own right, so she should have been given greater emotional participation in the central and subsidiary conflicts at hand.

For her part, Isidro relished the opportunities that her psychologically challenged character gave her, and came up with a textured portrayal that gave viewers pause—and food for thought.

Since she left her child and “caused” his trauma, hers was a decidedly unsympathetic character to play. On the other hand, she really couldn’t be “blamed” for her occasional mental frissons, so her performance elicited pity and understanding, as well!

All of the episode’s three principal actors had their “moments,” but the fact that John Lloyd’s protagonist characterization failed to peak and flare to suitably insightful heights deprived viewers of the big, rinsing catharsis that the production and its lead star were obviously aiming for.

The next time he comes up with a reputation-affirming dramatic gambit, therefore, John Lloyd should make doubly sure that the role isn’t just suitably challenging, but that other seemingly “minor” details don’t end up providing distractions or contradictions that blunt the sharp thrust of his determined efforts to prove that he is his generation’s leading young-adult, male thespic light.