The immersive musical Here Lies Love comes to Broadway after a 2013 sold out debut at The Public Theater followed by productions in London and Seattle. This is its first iteration with an all Filipino cast.

One has to wonder what makes 300 audience members cram onto the floor of a venue where pink-jump-suited ushers move them back-to-belly like cattle while they’re craning their necks to see performance on mobile platforms?  (Set by David Korins) Are they nostalgic for the sweaty closeness, pounding music, flashing lights and chaotic video of discos? Do they, especially after the pandemic, crave a sense of community experience?  

Arielle Jacobs (young Imelda Marcos)

There’s no question that the “immersive” part of advertising is truthful, though promoted “dancing” is restricted to raised arms – there’s simply no room. (Admittedly when asked to shout or gesture, most do with enthusiasm.) It’s also possible to be seated on a mezzanine or balcony. “Are you ready to have some fun? Make some noise!” begins the ersatz DJ setting a gung-ho tone. The company dances/vogues. “Americans can be what they want to be,” they sing.

Tocloban, Philippines 1945. Poor Imelda Romualdez (Arielle Jacobs) is a country girl with a dream. She has “no clothes, no bed, no jewelry, sometimes no shoes.” Her boyfriend Nimoy Aquino (Conrad Ricamora) is a rising, grassroots libertarian. Imelda registers only her own plight. Opposites attract, but the center doesn’t hold. She moves to Manila to live with relatives. In the production, a Miss Manila beauty pageant (wonderful, tacky gowns) brings her to the attention of Ferdinand Marcos (Jose Llana). In fact, they met when she visited her cousin Daniel, who was the speaker of the house.  

Conrad Ricamora (Ninoy Aquina campaigning)

The whirlwind courtship lasted eleven days. The couple married in secret. Marcos’ common-law wife, with whom he had already sired three children, was ushered away. Accordioning time, he runs for president on exaggerated promises and wins by a landslide. People are dazzled by the “beautiful wife of Marcos.” Her husband introduces her to sex. Also the sophisticated manners and appearance appropriate to a first lady. She refers to herself as Pygmalion. He plies his innocent bride with addictive drugs. Why?

They travel. She travels. To call it “high life” minimizes excess. Imelda parties everywhere, a media darling. She fraternizes with international leaders. We see photos and hear what amounts to a list song. All platforms are utilized for dancing. Characters step off and into the crowd with space cleared as they walk. Solos are sometimes performed on the balcony.

Jose Llana (Ferdinand Marcos) and Arielle Jacobs (Imelda Marcos)

“I’ll reach into your pockets to show you care,” Imelda sings to her people. Headlines, schematics, statistics, and real newsreel photos are projected. Exorbitant money was spent to further enhance lives of the rich (so much building that the Washington Post said she had “an edifice complex,”), press was gagged, 75,000 citizens were imprisoned, 35,000 tortured. “Order 1081” which includes martial law curbed demonstrations.

Aquino fights them and is imprisoned (seven years), but unlike Alexi Navalny in Russia, is released to exile in America. Not mentioned in the musical is the fact that her former lover had a life-threatening heart ailment; that Imelda convinced her husband to be clement allowing his departure for medical treatment.

Ferdinand Marcos is hospitalized with Lupus. His wife exuberantly takes over. Shades of Eva Peron: “I’m your servant and your slave,” she sings. We seem meant to feel sorry for this once clueless young woman whose avarice, pride, and selfishness helped destroy a country. Marcos himself is a complete cipher. The tyrants reigned 21 years before fleeing with billions of dollars. Over three days in 1986, shards of the interim government fell. Trappings of democracy – a bicameral legislature, competing political parties, a participating civil society and open media masked a continuance of vast inequality.

Conrad Ricamora (Aquino) on stage;Arielle Jacobs (Imelda Marcos) on platform

The musical closes in 1983 with the simultaneous return from exile and murder of Ninoy Aquino. “God Draws Straight,” a song based on comments by witnesses to the peaceful 1986 revolution, finds the population singing everything is back to normal. (The Marcos family was helicoptered out by their friend Ronald Reagan.) What, there, IS normal?

Imelda’s son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Bongbong, won the 2022 presidency. Despite plundered money, nationwide poverty, restriction of news, and loss of life under his parents, the family is in power again. “People here refuse to believe the family is guilty of corruption and rights abuses … Anonymous accounts create a convenient lack of accountability and repeatedly target journalists and truth-tellers… His critics say his election campaign shows he is dishonest with the truth, immune to criticism, and surrounded by cronies and `yes’ men.” BBC News

Arielle Jacobs (Imelda Marcos) parties

At a time when governments lie like breathing and corruption plagues, it seems remiss not to bring the story up to date.

Director Alex Timbers does more placement and herding than character defining. Credit where credit is due- things run smoothly. He might take on the Olympic Opening Ceremony next. Emotions are skimmed. The few impassioned songs leave nothing behind. Betrayed friends and mothers come and go. (Remember Stella Dallas watching her daughter’s marriage from afar?) Lea Salonga, who broke ground in 1989’s Miss Saigon, is greeted with applause at every entrance. I would conjecture more than half this audience are too young to have seen it.

Music (Fat Boy Slim) sounds pretty much the same. It’s inspired by the synthetic sound of karaoke —a cultural staple of Filipino lives, and, for the most part, prerecorded. Lyrics (David Byrne) are generic but for some escaping lines. Byrne apparently used Imelda’s speeches which are probably better off read. Sound design (M.L. Dogg and Cody Spencer) carries pristine individual vocals no matter where they originate. Group song is muddied or lost in a wall of sound.

The cast have fine voices, leads are well chosen. Arielle Jacobs (Imelda) is a find.

Neither choreography (Annie-B  Parson )- an amalgam of hip/hop, disco and Broadway nor the onslaught of projection design (Peter Nigrini) – picked up from newsreels, real time video and what looks like Photoshop geometrics – show creativity. Costume designer Clint Ramos excels at Imelda’s later wardrobe (love the shoulders), but company outfits for the most part look dull and cheap. On stage costume changes are clever and efficient. Craig Franklin Miller’s hair design works well, especially adding to Imelda’s wigs over time until style resembles that which is so familiar.

Photos by Billy Bustamante, Matthew Murphy, Evan Zimmerman
Opening: Arielle Jacobs (Imelda Marcos)

The title is what Imelda Marcos has requested on her tombstone.

Here Lies Love
Concept, Music and Lyrics by David Byrne
Music by Fatboy Slim
Additional Music by Tom Gandey and Jose Luis Pardo
Directed by Alex Timbers

Broadway Theatre  
1681 Broadway

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