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FourTwoNine — Issue 05
4FRONT
Anatomy of an Actor by Leilani Marie Labong
As a first-generation Filipino American, I always feel a kinship with other first-gens who are successful outside of science and medicine—the fields in which our parents tend to pin all their hopes and dreams. But sometimes the possibility of one day taking the Hippocratic oath pales in comparison to any combination of A) reallife ineptitude in anatomy and physiology; B) queasiness at the sight of blood; and C) true talents in such historically illcompensated creative industries as, oh, publishing (welcome to my instant-ramenfueled world) and, in the case of Conrad R icamora, the dramatic arts.
Above: Conrad Ricamora
Photograph by Marcus Cooper
The stage and screen actor, a California native—his father, an Air Force veteran, is from Manila—was critically acclaimed for his role as Ninoy Aquino in Here Lies Love, the 2014 off-Broadway musical by Talking Heads front man David Byrne and Fatboy Slim about the indulgent and tragic life of Imelda Marcos, former first lady of the Philippines. Ricamora’s roles—he’s currently playing the Burmese envoy Lun Tha in The King and I at the Lincoln Center Theater and Oliver Hampton, the introverted computer geek in the Shonda Rhimes TV drama How to Get Away with Murder—are complex and nuanced, surprising for someone who realized
his affinity for the stage only during his junior year in college. Ricamora’s theatrical ease is due in part to the Alexander Technique, a practice of releasing unwanted muscle tension that the thirt y-six-year-old Aquarian, Ben Kingsley worshipper, and velociraptor impersonator learned while completing his MFA in acting at the University of Tennessee. “It’s a way of letting go,” Ricamora has said. “It enables you to inhabit a character in your f lesh and bones, not just intellectually.” Looks like there was no escaping that anatomy lesson after all.