Julia Barr Brooke, All My Children
Outstanding performer for the week of July 29
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR, because you just might get it. In the case of All My Children's Brooke, she got more than she bargained for when she kept asking for trouble by refusing to let Maria stay dead.
After confronting "Maria" and then trashing her hotel room like The Who after an all-nighter, a disheveled, gasping Brooke slouched in shame, her eyes searching the wreckage for someplace to hide from Tad. "You warned me," she admitted about his admonishments to leave Maria dead. As she spoke, a sense of mania crept into Barr's voice and her eyes sparkled with fire.
As Brooke recounted making peace with painful memories and accepting Edmund, she fought to keep her emotions in check-instead of merely reciting her lines, Barr choked on Brooke's pain over the death of her daughter.
To express Brooke's particular twisted mental state, Barr smiled through her tears-the effect was unsettling, giving her the demeanor of a crazy woman. She grinned as tears rolled down her cheeks. "I'm such a cliche. I'm a smart woman who makes stupid choices," she sobbed, her eyes glittering.
Barr also made fine use of body language to illustrate tbe past closing in on Brooke-she kept her hands wrapped close to her body and knitted her fingers. She held her face in her hands and kept turning away from Tad as if too ashamed to face him.
By giving in to a messy, makeup-streaked, puffy-eyed crying jag, Barr made Brooke appear to be teetering on the brink of insanity as she lamented choosing Tad over Edmund nearly a decade ago.
Yes, Brooke was distraught over finding "Maria," but Barr showed us a woman sadder still about her past, her legacy of bad decisions. And she had to face the fact that this was just another in a long line of self-destructive choices. "If I had a knife, I would cut out my conscience, I swear to God, and I would take care of only me," she cried.
Fearing Tad would establish Maria's identity, Brooke croaked, "I lost him once, Tad. I don't think I can survive it again." Barr was so effective in these scenes, viewers could be forgiven for agreeing with Brooke!