‘Here Lies Love’ sets dictatorship to a disco beat

LOS ANGELES — There is a lot of history in and around the show “Here Lies Love.” The 90-minute musical tells the story of Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines, the authoritarian rule of the Marcos regime, and the People Power Revolution that sent them into exile. 

The show also made history when it opened on Broadway, and Reanne Acasio was there.

“Being in the original Broadway cast, the first time that an all-Filipino cast on Broadway, that was an extraordinary experience,” she recalled. “And then, less than three years later, here we are in LA, which has the largest Filipino community outside of the Philippines.”

Acasio is playing Imelda Marcos in this entirely re-imagined production. She finds the light disco-pop score, which features music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, makes the darkness of the story more accessible.

“It’s really hard to, you know, come in guns blazing with a really traumatic, painful thing,” Acasio said. “And to play it to the tune of this disco pop, we’re able to kind of sneakily open up that conversation.”

A conversation she admits she never had growing up with her own immigrant parents.

“My parents were there in the Philippines…and in my family at least, which I have observed in a lot of other Filipino families, it may be a cultural thing that we don’t talk about those really painful memories,” she said. “And so I didn’t learn about all these events as a Filipino-American until I did this show.”

Josh Dela Cruz, who plays Aquino, had a similar experience. As a young actor, he thought being seen as ethnically ambiguous would be better for his career, but working with so many other Filipino performers in earlier versions of this show changed that.

“Filipinos who were so confident in who they were as people, as Americans, and where their culture came from, that was really important for me to embrace who I am,” he said. “It was a place where I learned not just a lot about my profession, but a lot about myself as well, and my identity as a Filipino American.”

This production is directed by Snehal Desai, who is also the artistic director of the Center Theatre Group. Increasing AAPI storytelling on local stages has been a personal mission of his, and with Kim’s Convenience set to open at the Ahmanson while Here Lies Love is still running at the Taper, he calls this a dream moment. 

“It just means a lot in terms of representation, visibility for our communities and also uplifting the diversity that makes LA the city that it is,” he said.

It’s also an educational moment, or as Desai put it, “just the start of the conversation.”

He knows it’s hard to tell an entire history in 90 minutes, so for those who want to learn more, there is a timeline posted outside the Taper.

“What I hope is that it leads to a curiosity of the greater context of what the revolution was like in the Philippines,” he said. “We have so many folks who lived this history coming to see the show every night. We have cast members who either themselves left the Philippines or their family members were a part of the revolution. And so what we wanted to do with this timeline that we have outside, with all of the resources around the show, is provide a little more additional context.”

Acasio says having this story on this revered stage is “cultural win,” and finds the story — and the history behind it — even more relevant now than when it opened on Broadway.

“Martial law was declared in the Philippines for a very long time under the Marcos regime. There were media blackouts. It was an incredibly oppressive time for Filipinos,” she explained. “There have been a lot of very moving comments at the stage door saying that it was healing for them and it allowed them to even talk about it with their children. That they were inspired, but more importantly, their children were inspired to learn more about what happened and to not let history repeat itself.”