Living in New York means getting to go to Broadway shows and experiencing an array of different methods of storytelling. So when I am shocked by a show and want to go back over and over again, it typically means that I watched something special unfold before me, and that’s how I felt leaving Here Lives Love on Broadway. With music by Fat Boy Slim and David Byrne, the show brings you into a dance party set in the Philippines during the rule of Imelda Marcos back in the ’60s, until she was forced into exile in 1986. Currently, her son, Bongbong Marcos, is the president of the Philippines.
The show takes the audience into a disco-like setting, with many audience members standing on a dance floor throughout the show, moving with the actors and encouraged to dance along at times. There are also seats like the gallery seating closer to the middle of the stage, as well as the balcony, which has an interactive element to it, but the show immerses you in the world of the Marcos family and their rule over the country as people like Ninoy Aquino fought for the freedom of the people.
What’s so mesmerizing about the show is being thrown into the world of the music, especially if you’re on the dance floor like I was. Seeing the cast singing to you, encouraging you to join in their fight, and feeling the energy as the story unfolds in a brief 90-minute show is just an experience like no other—all leading to a song that truly takes the breath out of you by the end of the show, which left me sobbing in the midst of a dance floor, staring up at the cast.
A story worth telling
Part of it might be my deep love of David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame), but the show itself is important for its subject matter. Ending its final numbers by showing the importance of democracy, teaching of the martial law enacted by the Marcos family in the ’70s, and driving it home by pointing out how democracy everywhere is in danger, and that the Marcos family is back in power in the Philippines today? It stays with you.
If you listen to the cast recording, the song that really did just hit and stay with me was God Draws Straight from the end of the show, which was written with the words said during the People Power Revolution that happened after the assassination of Aquino and when the unrest over the rule of the Marcos got to an all time high. Hearing that song mixed with the show’s message of democracy and the fight to keep it sacred just left me sobbing in the midst of the bright lights and disco ball moments.
Confetti fell, and I was ready to turn around and go right back into the world of Here Lies Love again and again, and if there is one show you should definitely see on Broadway, it is this one.
(featured image: Bruce Glikas/WireImage)
