"It's so exciting to be in this cast of 100% Filipino people," says Jacobs, "because all of us, I think, feel such a deep connection to this story and to each other. So, it seemed to a lot of people very promising, but then it all goes south."įor most of the cast members, Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos' rise and fall happened long before they were born, but Arielle Jacobs says the legacy is something they all share. They did keep a lot of their campaign promises in the early days. "People were seduced by the Marcoses," he says. "And you feel in a way complicit you know 'I cheered when they won the presidency, but now I realize the tyranny of dictatorship.' "ĭavid Byrne says the show looks at the fragility of democracy. But then 40 minutes later, you can be at the funeral march for Aquino," Timbers explains. "The audience can get cast in the drama in a way so you can be cheering on at the wedding of Ferdinand and Imelda. Director Alex Timbers says as the show goes on, you become aware of the corrupt, repressive, murderous Marcos regime. We had to file permits with the city."Īrielle Jacobs and Jose Llana as Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos in Here Lives Love.īut in Here Lies Love, audience participation is not all fun and games. We have things that you normally would never think about building, right? So, we have running lights and fire egress and emergency lights and exit lights. "We have catwalks that performers are walking on. "We build not just playing spaces, but we build seating places for audience to sit, looking down into this box," he explains. Set designer David Korins has used 63,000 pounds of structural steel to construct the new environment and wrapped the auditorium with video screens that give historical context. Three hundred audience members stand on a dance floor, while others sit directly above it or in the balcony. The theater has gotten an expensive makeover. "Getting to walk through the audience and really connect with them every night, I feel like I'm getting to experience the show fresh," says Arielle Jacobs, who plays Imelda from age 16 to 57, when a revolution forced the Marcoses to flee the country. "I imagined it as being a theatrical story, a musical story being told in a discotheque," Byrne says, laughing, "and on little platforms around the periphery." So, he wrote a score with a thumping beat and melodic hooks, to invite the audience to dance along with her. He read that Imelda Marcos was a fan of disco – she was a frequent visitor to Studio 54 and installed a mirror ball in Malacañang Palace. And the immersive staging was essential to David Byrne's concept. Here Lies Love was a hit off-Broadway, 10 years ago, at the much smaller Public Theater. "I didn't expect to get a history lesson in a disco, but I did!" "I thought it was very fun," said Nico de Jesus, who had just seen the show. At a time when Broadway ticket sales are down, is an immersive new musical a way to bring audiences back?Īfter a recent preview performance of Here Lies Love, a crowd gathered outside the theater. It tells the story of Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos' rise and fall in the Philippines. Here Lies Love, with a score by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, literally turns the Broadway Theatre into a disco, with many members of the audience on the dance floor, surrounded by the actors. On Thursday, a new $22 million musical opens on Broadway and it may be a bigger risk than most. The $22 million immersive musical production is a big Broadway gamble.īilly Bustamante, Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman Here Lies Love tells the story of Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos' rise and fall in the Philippines.
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