Applause, Applause

Outstanding performer for the week of April 19

"I don't know how to do this, oh, God, I don't know how to lose my son," Laura wailed over and over again as she mourned the death of her beloved son Lucky on General Hospital. The same could not be said of Genie Francis, who knew precisely how to play every facet of Laura's agony, delivering a week's worth of evocative performances that made her character's pain as real and unbearable for us to watch as it was for Laura to endure.

In addition to the tragedy that snuffed out her child's life -- the cruelest blow any parent can suffer, which clearly impacted Francis, herself a mother -- Laura was unable to cleave to the one person who shared her pain like no other. Even when Luke and Laura came physically closer than they've been in months, the disrepair of their marriage was unmistakeable and lamentable; Francis' eyes pleaded to connect, but they, and Laura, were rejected.

Laura's bursts of anger -- and Luke, at Sonny and Jason, at the gods, at herself -- which erupted randomly, could have been washed over in the emotional maelstrom of Francis' hysterical weeping. That they were brutal in their sting and yet remarkably lucid and controlled speaks of the actress' gift; Francis never plays just the dialogue she is given, but always grounds her performances in the essential nature of her character. For those who have watched this character and actress for the better part of two decades, it seems that in this time and place for them both, the combination of intrinsic tenderness and determined strength had become inextricably and laudably bound.

The precision with which Francis' pinpointed the dizzying range of her character's moods and actions, and the fluency with which she conveyed them, were remarkable. At home, alone with her mother, Laura's almost dreamy reminiscence of meeting Luke and instantly falling in love with him segued without warning into frenzied tantrum about whether Lucky had awakened during the fire and had suffered before dying. After a silent but highly emotional encounter with Luke before Lucky's memorial service, Laura went into the church and yielded to Elizabeth's embrace. Although sincere, her words then, "Thank you for loving my son," sounded robotic. But moments later, standing before family and friends to offer her eugoly, Francis' Laura was exuding pathos and pain in equal measure, yet held off, until she was seated again, the flood of tears that then spilled down her face as they had all week long. As Laura said to the mourners, "My heart is broken, but my heart is also full." And so it was, too, for us.

Linda Susman