2000 Performer
Soap Opera Digest
April 2000
Performer of the Week
Asking Erika Slezak to tackle a breast cancer storyline is like throwing a fastball to Mark McGwire. You know they're going to hit it out of the park. Over the years and through five Emmy's Slezak's Viki has suffered through alternate personalities, kidney donation and stroke – and could probably make a computer glitch seem compelling.
So we waited to see what made this new trauma unique. Early in her diagnosis, Slezak already had us riveted. The first time she called herself a “cancer patient,” she paused, and in that silence we hard how far Viki still was from accepting her situation. Using a soft tone that belied Viki's shaky attempts at a reporter's objectivity. Slezak hammered home her characters' terror. By avoiding over-the-top histrionics, Viki's fear was more palpable.
But then Viki sat down to break the news to her children, and we realized we were seeing something different. In those moments, Viki wasn't just a victime of an illness suffering in self-imposed silence. With Jessica, Joey and Kevin, she had to play a new kind of multiple role, as a stricken woman, a cancer patient – and as the mother of three brokenhearted, adult children. Few actresses can shift from one to the other with such delicate grace.
We believed Viki when she said. “I am quite determined that it is not going to kill me. It is not going to beat me.” But there was more going on than just words or tears – in those moments we felt like one of her children. Wrapping her arms around a crying Jessica, it felt as if Viki was giving us a comforting hug, too. It was a unique, interactive moment – courtesy of a seasoned pro hitting another home run.
