Going off to jail on soaps doesn’t mean exiting the canvas. Case in point: Jeff Kober still appears as Cyrus Renault on General Hospital not only in Pentonville but also in dream scenes. He and Genie Francis, as Laura Collins, slayed in some recent episodes that took place in a setting that was both a prison and fantasy sequence.
Genie Francis and Jeff Kober – Performers of the Week
After being attacked by a fellow inmate and losing consciousness, Cyrus woke up in a new but familiar surrounding — a prison cell. He began to question exactly where he was and his answer wasn’t one he wanted to hear! “No, this isn’t real,” Cyrus said refusing to accept that he’d traded one prison for another. Then, Laura, or rather a vision of her from Cyrus’s mind, appeared. “You’re not hallucinating. You’re dying, Cyrus,” fantasy Laura cryptically informed her half-brother.
“You spent your whole life wanting your own way and using any means possible to get it,” fantasy Laura continued. “There are some things you can’t control no matter how determined or powerful or ruthless you may be. In the end, we’re just mortal.”
These scenes enabled Francis to bring a new dimension to her acting. She wasn’t playing Laura, the Mayor of Port Charles or the heart of GH, but rather she embodied Cyrus’s inner voice. She spoke the words that he wasn’t ready to hear until now.
Francis’s Laura has never held back from ripping into Cyrus, especially when he’s at his worst, but in these scenes, Francis brought less anger and more logic to her approach to Laura’s sibling. The director wisely opted to have fantasy Laura appear seamlessly on the outside of Cyrus’s cage and then, she’d be inches from his ear so she could calmly get her point across to him. Sometimes not yelling at the other person in the scene is even more effective than blasting him or her. Francis, a Daytime Emmy winner for playing Laura, always makes acting choices that make her performances compelling and captivating.
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The writers threw viewers a curve ball after nefarious Cyrus found religion behind bars. It’d be easy to say that it’s an act. Cyrus is pulling a fast one until he can plan his escape — or is he? We saw in these scenes that Cyrus can’t lie to us or himself when he’s on an ethereal plane.
Jeff Kober won a Daytime Emmy last year for bringing humanity to his otherwise awful character. But in these out-of-body experience scenes, he was given an even greater platform to peel more layers of his character. With fantasy Laura’s help, Cyrus once again chose life over death and opened his eyes.
Laura’s overseas right now trying to find Nikolas (Adam Huss) and Cyrus is incarcerated back in Pentonville. Yet where there’s life, there is hope! Genie Francis and Jeff Kober reminded us in these special scenes that they are two actors who have terrific chemistry. Clearly, there’s more story to be told between Laura and Cyrus and we look forward to seeing these them bring to life their next chapter.
General Hospital airs weekdays on ABC. For an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.
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