Reviewed by F. Kathleen Foley
Mark Taper Forum
Through April 5
David Byrne has been known for musical innovation ever since he gained fame as the frontman for the Talking Heads.
Yet his musical, Here Lies Love, currently at the Mark Taper Forum, falls short of his typical inventiveness. A collaboration with Fatboy Slim, another musical innovator (Byrne conceived and wrote the music and lyrics, while Slim contributed music), Love dramatizes the rise and fall of Ferdinand Marcos, president of the Philippines for over 20 years before he was toppled from power in the 1986 People Power Revolution. An inspirational movement, the Revolution was a bloodless resistance that forced Marcos and his wife Imelda to flee to Hawaii with the help of the US government.
Imelda (Reanne Acasio), the focus of this bio-musical, is seen from her teens through her later years as the Philippines’ jet-setting first lady. She became notorious for her mindless extravagances at a time when her country-people were starving — after all, who can forget her appalling shoe collection? (It should be noted that she is still alive and living in luxury in Manila, while her son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., presides as the country’s president. Apparently, entitlement and wealth can scour clean even the most tarnished reputations.)
Imelda has expressed the wish that when she dies, her tombstone be engraved with the words “Here Lies Love” — the inspiration for the musical’s title. At one point in the show, she wonders why she can’t command the love of the Filipino people, evidently clueless to the fact that, when it comes to wives of brutal dictators, she’s no Eva Peron.
And Here Lies Love is no Evita. The show has had an uneven journey, from a 2010 concept album to a 2013 Off-Broadway production to a 2023 Broadway run. While the most recent Broadway iteration received acclaim for its boldly immersive staging, the Taper’s “immersion” consists of a couple of off-stage playing areas and actors occasionally entering through the audience.
Snehal Desai, the artistic director of the Center Theatre Group and this production’s director, has assembled an all-Filipino cast — a welcome nod to ethnic authenticity. However, he cannot outstrip the controversies that have dogged the show since its inception. A planned 2015 Australian production was canceled following protests against the “whitewashing” of Imelda. Another controversy developed around the Broadway production’s use of pre-recorded tracks for a live orchestra, sparking a fight with the musicians’ union that was bitterly negotiated.
Desai struggles to rise above these negative connotations in a well-paced and glitzy staging, but he is further lumbered by undistinguished musical numbers and an overly chronological plot reminiscent of Cliff Notes. The simplistic supertitles and images from the era featured in Yee Eun Nam’s essential projection design clue us in on events, year by year and decade by decade, but they are a poor substitute for a cohesive and creative dramatic arc. There is no book; the random song cycle is valiantly addressed in Brian Hsiuh’s richly comprehensible sound design, which allows us to hear every lyric. Joe Cruz and Jennifer Lin’s musical direction is excellent, as is Marcella Barbeau’s flashing, disco-inspired lighting.
The evening opens with an episode of a fictionalized Filipino television show, ‘American Troglodyte,’ starring Imeldific (Aura Mayari), an extravagantly attired drag version of Imelda. It’s a baffling and tonally arbitrary framing device that recurs throughout but never really connects to the main action. Strong-voiced and assured, Reanne Acasio tries her best as Imelda but can’t manage to fully humanize such an essentially unsympathetic character. Chris Renfro nails the charismatic, testosterone-infused appeal of Ferdinand Marcos, while, in the evening’s pivotal turn, Joshua Dela Cruz captures the idealistic heroism of the doomed martyr, Ninoy Aquino.
Controversies and challenges aside, this is a frighteningly timely piece. The evening concludes with moving first-hand accounts, shown in supertitles, from those on the scene when the Marcos regime fell — an unprecedentedly peaceful transition in which no lives were lost. The final number, “God Draws Straight,” has the audience rising in solidarity with those long-ago activists, whose non-violent protests lend hope to those currently protesting against governmental oppression and corruption. It’s a poignant reminder that the tree of liberty — and democracy — does not always have to be watered in blood.
Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A. Tue-Thurs, 7:30 p.m.; Fri, 8 p.m.; Sat, 2 and 8 p.m., Sun, 1 and 7 p.m. thru April 5. https://www.centertheatregroup.org/shows-tickets/ Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.
