#Here Lies Love

[lady-of-the-upside-down]

Something funny I noticed:

Dictators’ wives in fiction: oh no my love what are you doing, this isn’t the you I met before

Dictators’ wives in real life: oh heck yeah let’s do the dictatoring together, I’ll spend all of the country’s money on dumb shit

Even applies to fictionalizations of real ones actually

[appleflavoredkitkats]

i am swarmed so this isn't a coherent post but please don't support here lies love the musical as it comes to broadway. the entire show is historical propaganda that romanticizes the marcoses and makes imelda marcos, wife of dictator ferdinand marcos, the main character. there's so much things wrong with marcos, but to summarize, he declared martial law in the philippines 50 years ago, used his position as president to funnel billions of dollars to himself and his family, murdered and tortured thousands of activists, educators, politicians, etc. who opposed him, committed genocides against indigenous folks, and so much fucking more. i despise him and his family. what's worse is that marcos' son bong bong marcos is the current president of the philippines.

if this musical becomes highly-rated, i fear how much people are going to be miseducated. i'm scared of how much power this is going to give the marcoses now. most shitty politicians here are professionals at propaganda, vote buying, and disinformation that if this musical comes into play, i don't know how hard it would be to get leaders like marcos out.

even if the musical does talk about the cronyism of marcos during martial law, making imelda the main character and attempting to peer into her psyche is obviously still gonna make audiences sympathize for her! and i'm so fucking tired of everyone making imelda look like a fucking girlboss when she's part of the reason marcos did all he did! i'm so fucking tired of people attempting to humanize her or make "nuanced" takes on the marcoses WHEN THEY ARE STILL ALIVE AND IN POWER!!! if they rlly wanted to make a musical informing other abt martial law uhhh idk maybe make it in the perspective of those who fought against the marcoses?!?!?!?

please boycott the musical. please constantly shut down their attempts of celebrating their "inclusivity". insult them for all i care. i have no respect for people who don't want to acknowledge the thousands of people who died and were tortured under marcos. marcos has stunted the growth and development of the philippines and i will forever detest him for this.

[bughead-in-the-comics]

From Here Lies Love, Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica #99 (1964).

[droughtofapathy]

2023-2024 Broadway Season Ranked

I saw every new show that opened on Broadway in the 2023-2024 season. Once more, perfectly normal and not at all cost-prohibitive. Compared to seasons' past, this one was plentiful in new musicals and utterly bereft of quality. Usually I have at least four shows that rewire my entire circuitry, but not this time.

Do you have strong opinions on any of these new shows? Are you filled with unstoppable rage at this list? Do you agree wholeheartedly? Discuss.

[jackson-falahee]

jackfalahee: Ooof i am proud of this guy. @conradricamora has been working on @herelieslovebway for over 10 years and is now making history as the first ever all-Filipino cast on broadway. The show is sensational and i can’t wait for the world to see it. Conrad, you’re nothing short of magic. I love you.

Congrats to the entire cast and crew. Shoutout to @davidkorins for the absolutely insane design. Like nothing I’ve ever seen on broadway.

[piosplayhouse]

Listened to the Imelda Marcos broadway musical expecting to be a hater about it but I fear the soundtrack actually kind of goes hard

[nablah]

Begging theater people to boycott Here Lies Love. It is literally (yes literally) and figuratively whitewashed history presenting half of a conjugal dictatorship as merely a woman to be pitied and not a literal criminal (this isn't some fantasy blorbo either, she's alive and living off the deaths of thousands of Filipinos).

We get it that you probably hate it for the union issues but it doesn't stop there! The roots and intentions of this musical are evil at its core, excusing the legacy of fascism and the reek of human rights violations as the son of the main character sits as president.

Listen to the people they have and continue to rob, jail, murder, rape, and oppress!

[especially-the-beans]

Happy Tonys season!! If you want to hear a taste of all of the musicals this season, I made a Spotify playlist with 3-5 songs from each:

[palmyclams]

Last year when I met David Byrne at his musical and we chatted a few times and I forgot what wants were

[thesquirrelqueer]

how tony noms feel this year

[harveyguillensource]

Ten years after his first time, Harvey saw Here Lies Love again, starring his friend Melody Butiu!

[lady-of-the-upside-down]

If I had a nickel for every tyrant character in a currently running Broadway musical that assures his wife that his mistress means nothing to him, I’d have two nickels. It isn’t much but it’s weird that it happened twice.

[appleflavoredkitkats]

don't support here lies love the musical as it comes to bway

my post on here lies love is getting rounds and while i still stand by everything i said on that post, my grievances with the musical has Grown in the last couple of weeks of me researching about it. granted, i still need to do more— i want to do an essay on it in the future because i would hate for it to run on broadway for long, but because that takes time, i thought, at least, i would need to make a post detailing what i find wrong about this musical. even if it's not the most comprehensive, i want more people to be informed about it as soon as possible.

so, have this. ramblings at 5am. i'll try my best to gather sources, but information i have regarding the marcoses comes from a lot of non-digital resources like classes, museums, and physical books. in this case, i recommend the following resources to learn more about who the marcos family is and what they did:

"the kingmaker" by lauren greenfield. native filipinos can watch this free on youtube, but if you aren't from the ph i recommend using a vpn to access it or find a pirated version somewhere else

online martial law museum

if you can buy it, "some are smarter than others" by ricardo manapat, a book detailing marcos' crony capitalism and all his faults

i'd also like to preface: i am not a saint. i am not a historian nor the smartest person who can detail everything marcos did when he was born. i'm trying to do my best with what i know, and i am down to learn more if others want to chime in.

lastly, here's a fresher on the names of people involved, because it can be confusing:

ferdinand marcos — i will try my best calling him ferdinand but most people, including myself, often call him just "marcos" despite the fact that they technically all are marcoses. he was the president from 1965-1986

imelda marcos — i will refer to her as imelda. wife to ferdinand and contributed a lot to his reign of terror. she is still alive today.

bong bong marcos — son of ferdinand and imelda. his name is often shorted to bbm, which i will use. he is currently the present of the philippines

ninoy aquino — marcos' main rival who he indirectly murdered. not a perfect guy tho, just the lesser evil. i will just call him ninoy

now, onto the real deal:

thesis statement, so this can be easy to follow: despite the intentions of the musical being anti-marcos, much of how it is written and presented will inevitably become propaganda to brighten the image of the marcoses. by putting imelda in the forefront, making her entire character do what she does supposedly out of love, audiences will come out of the theatre sympathizing with her and her family. not only is this politically dangerous, but it is incredibly insensitive to native filipinos who have not only gone through the struggle of martial law, but also is suffering through bbm's presidency today.

[rest of the post under the cut]

despite what a lot of criticisms claim, the intentions of the musical is not to be pro-marcos. this is stated in their instagram post:

david bryne also stated these in an article from the guardian:

"The mindset of the Marcos regime and the mindset of disco music to me doesn’t seem all that distant. The hedonistic, escapist feeling of losing yourself and being transported to another world, like you feel on the dance floor and like you feel in a dance club, that’s a means to divorce yourself from the rest of the world, just as Imelda did.

When you’re dancing, you’re in this psychological and sonic bubble, in the same way that powerful people create a bubble around themselves. So I wanted to give an audience a taste of that feeling.

In the first half, when the play is dealing with her childhood, her upbringing and her meeting with Ferdinand Marcos, it’s meant to get the audience to empathise with her and understand what’s driving her and then they’ll understand how that manifests later on."

so, it seems promising: an anti-marcos musical that will make audiences dislike empathizing with her. initially, i really liked the concept of audiences being lost with the music similar to how the marcoses were able to play a lot of their supporters.

but, and a big but, 1.) there's a lot to pick apart from these statements, and 2.) i fucking despise how they presented imelda in the musical.

let's discuss the first point: the instagram post details that the intent of the musical is to dispel disinformation created about the marcoses. first thing's first, if this truly was a musical that aims to educate, then broadway is probably the worst way to do it. while the west and native filipinos could share the award of most misinformed about the marcoses, native filipinos are the ones most affected by it. we just suffered a terrible election last year with constant speculation and reports of vote buying. i've heard accounts from people from the province that bbm would send representatives to bribe those in poverty to ensure a vote. we are suffering in the worst education crisis, with the most corrupt politicians you can think of.

so, if this musical aims to educate, the fact that you can only access it by viewing it live on broadway is incredibly... backwards. how are you opting to dispel information when those most affected can't even access it?

what's worse is the statement that says that modern history of the philippines cannot be told without the usa. it is such a patronizing, surface-level statement that gets my blood boiling. it is true that our histories and present-day contexts are intertwined, especially since the filipino diaspora in the usa is incredibly huge, but that's because this is all a product of american colonization + imperialism. stating like the philippines owes the usa to retell our native stories mirrors much of the savior complex-esque sentiments the usa had when they colonized us.

now, onto bryne's statement. the main problem i have with it is him insinuating that imelda is a victim of circumstance. he wants us the audience "empathize" with her and understand her downfall. this is common rhetoric uninformed people, even filipinos, used to excuse imelda's contributions. that she was supposedly "poor", that marcos put her through hell. but genuinely, and i cannot emphasize this enough, imelda was an absolute ass on her own accord.

no, she did not grow up poor. her wikipedia even states that she grew up in a wealthy family, born into the romualdez political dynasty. my history professor even claimed that she attempted bribing the mayor when she lost one of her beauty pageants. despite the repetitive "i'm doing this for love!" bullshit the musical regurgitates, imelda did not even marry marcos out of love. in ricardo manapat's book, he details how marcos attempted to swoon imelda by showing her his vault of money (of course, possibly stolen). she was enraptured by marcos the moment she saw his WEALTH.

i want to emphasize: imelda is not fucking stupid. much of what marcos did to the philippines was thanks to her. i would recommend watching the kingmaker documentary for all the details, but just know she is still alive and incredibly wealthy. she is well-known for her absolute gaudiness and all of that comes from her money-centric mindset. she does not give a shit about love.

here's some accounts by ricardo manapat from his book. on imelda falling in love with marcos (btw, she had a fiance at the time and didn't tell him she was marrying marcos until said fiance found out on the damn newspaper):

imelda being aware of the wealth she accumulates in politics:

on this note, i'd love to discuss how historically inaccurate the musical is. i'd like to preface that i've only listened to the only available version of the musical which is the 2013 version on spotify. this could have changed, but either way, the general tone of the narrative already reads to me as extremely incorrect, anyway. i'd also love to detail every discrepancy of each song, but again, i'll save that for a future essay.

in general, the musical's plotline follows imelda, a "humble and poor" girl from leyte who grows up and marries ferdinand. she repeatedly expresses she's doing this all out of love. thus, the musical insinuates that imelda is merely a victim of circumstance, and that she didn't become evil on her own accord. and yet, from what i've presented so far, she was very much aware! she was not passive. you have to understand, SHE was the reason both men and women had equal opportunities to become corrupt in our government.

what marcos did was also imelda's fault. the genocide and displacement of indigenous people, the mass torture and murder of journalists and politicians, the stealing of companies and mass wealth, the mass delivery of non-native animals to the philippines. she condoned all that. yes, marcos cheated on her, but she also used that as a means to manipulate him into doing whatever she wanted. they are both horrible people.

speaking of, marcos' song in the musical was also really bad. he could be written as lying for all we know, but his "fear" of japanese soldiers invading the philippines is also up for debate. there is speculation of the marcoses collaborating with japanese troops, which also led to the murder of marcos' father's political rival.

and while i don't know if there's actual dialogue outside of the songs, i don't think this musical actually informs us much of the marcos' faults. the songs, which will be the most accessible thing to native filipinos, express nothing but generic descriptions of what characters feel about certain situations. it's hard to understand or know what these people are actually doing because it's just so vague and ambiguous. how are you supposed to inform when none of the music details, well, anything? the information given is so minimal that i pray, at least, the musical would have more explicit scenes about marcos' atrocities.

and that's my main problem with the musical. with how much they spend sympathizing with imelda in the first act, i don't think everything the marcoses have done can be encapsulated in the second. of course, i'm not asking to give me a detailed rundown of everything they did, but let's be honest, this musical was never about dispelling disinformation. if it was, then they wouldn't spend an entire act and a half sucking imelda's dick. it's not about educating audiences about martial law. it's about humanizing imelda, with martial law and the marcoses' atrocities as a second priority. it makes me sick to my stomach seeing how pure imelda is presented when travelling to meet other world leaders, or how she's seen as the person who insisted that ninoy move away from the philippines.

it was never about education or re-information. in the end, these were such pretentious and performative statements to defend a historically inaccurate musical.

and tbh, that's just the tip of the iceberg of why i hate this musical. another thing is that, holy shit is it obvious that it's written by two white people. they mispronounce "tacloban" (should be tacLOban not tacloBAN). these characters are also just... not distinctly filipino? they're so white in mannerisms. i need more insulting humor, more grit. in fairness, the richer you are in the philippines the more connected you are to western culture, but i would have loved to see that disaparity more in the songwriting. they really peaked (/s) when they wrote these lyrics:

this is... awful, in a cringey what the hell manner. i hope they changed it for the bway production, because this was blatant evidence that the songwriters barely took the time to understand our culture before writing.

if you don't understand what it says, "titi mo" (the correct spelling is tite but i digress) means "your dick". i think imelda is trying to call marcos a dick, but they literally translated dick in tagalog. but tite isn't an insult, it literally refers to a penis. "mo" is the equivalent of "your" which also makes ZERO sense. the lyric literally goes "how can a your penis run the country?", like WHAT.

so you know, maybe there's a reason why many filipinos fucking despise this show on twitter. we are insulted for good reason. they are sensationalizing and glamorizing our suffering for their own gain. we native filipinos and other filipino diaspora who can't access the show have nothing to gain. here lies love is profiting from our struggles that we are still recovering from and experiencing today. imagine if you made a musical about hitler explaining he is a victim of circumstance to disco music. insensitive, isn't it? i'd love to ask the cast of here lies love if they'd ever show the musical to living survivors and families of victims of martial law.

and what's worse, because of course it gets worse, misinformation like this is what boosts the reputation of corrupt politicians in the first place. manapat quotes what leonard saffir wrote about how marcos built his reputation in new york via a biography filled with disinformation. the excerpt is too long but it's quoted from this article by the new york times. and now we are living in an era of another musical based on imelda being shown in new york — time is a flat fucking circle.

what sickens me is that this musical is possibly a lot of americans' first exposure to the marcoses, and what will they think? imelda is just a poor girl, imelda is just a victim, imelda is blah blah blah. that will be stamped in their head. even if some filipinos have come out of this musical dreadful that they sympathized with imelda, not everyone is gonna have the same experience.

^ this an excerpt from one of theatermania's articles. dictators have feelings too, i guess!

objectively, there is nuance when it comes to anyone. but the problem is, we cannot afford to consider nuance in politics. we cannot sympathize with imelda right now when people are dying of poverty under the marcoses' hand. the marcoses are very much alive, very much in power, and very much willing to lend their offspring to other positions of power. they turned the entirety of ilocos into a bunch of marcos dicksuckers, and i'm afraid that this musical can make a ton of their audiences be oblivious to the true extents of the marcos' atrocities. i'm already seeing people on tiktok say that there's nothing wrong about this musical, or that this can exist when miss saigon and evita exist (which in on itself are problematic beliefs, because they are glamorizing other country's sufferings too).

i am privileged enough to be educated about marcos, and while there is much to be done in terms of disability and lgbtqia+ rights, i am lucky to be less impacted by the marcoses compared to other people. but there are hundreds of thousands of filipinos severely affected by marcos. what's worse, is that there are plenty extremely uneducated that they are unaware that marcos is directly contributing to their suffering. my history professor told us that other countries are using the philippines as their model for successful disinformation campaigns. in this era of disinformation, we cannot afford to disinform even more. as sad as it is, the usa has a lot of power and control over the philippines (and the world, tbh), so one wrong step into the wrong direction and we're fucked. this musical fails the message it attempts to preach and i cannot imagine how much more people are going to spread misinformation about the philippines like they did during the 2022 elections.

to end off, i'd like to mention to everyone that imelda marcos has actually listened to the musical. in this new york times article, she says, "i'm flattered, i can't believe it!". i don't know what to tell you— if imelda herself says she likes the musical you claim to be anti-marcos, then what does that say about the musical?

i guess i'll end with, i am willing to change opinions once i see how the musical is being executed. if they emphasize the atrocities done by marcos and give proper information about the timeline of events, then i can be more lenient. but if i still see any attempts woobifying imelda, then i stand by what i say. this musical is insensitive, disrespectful, and just fucking hurtful.

[the-mechanica]

Yes I am excited for Rev singing, but it's also launched me on a "Darin de Paul was a Broadway actor" rant, where I swear that Rev's accent has vague NYC vibes before I remember that exact fact (his longer vowels are akin to Harley Quinn's for example).

Not to mention that there is a musical on Broadway RIGHT NOW about the ebb and flow of democracy in the Philippines, called Here Lies Love (regarding former President Marcos and the People Power Revolution of 86), so when Conduit started singing too I was like "omg did Respawn go to Broadway wtf" (note that musical has been kicking around for a decade but it's now on Broadway)

[thewhizzyhead]

anyways now that I'm back on this site, let it be well fucking known that this filipino musical theatre rambler absolutely abhors the Here Lies Love musical and I am absolutely ashamed that it is gonna be known as the first Broadway musical with an all-filipino/fil-am cast BECAUSE GLORIFYING A PERSON (imelda marcos) INVOLVED IN A CONJUGAL DICTATORSHIP (wife of ferdinand marcos) THAT CAUSED HUNDREDS OF DEATHS AND AN ECONOMIC CRISIS DUE TO ILLEGALLY ACCUMULATED WEALTH FROM PHILIPPINE TAXES ESPECIALLY WHILE SAID PERSON IS STILL ALIVE WITH HER SON (ferdinand "bongbong" marcos jr) BACK IN POWER IS ALL SORTS OF WRONG

[violapeeps-blog]

Stop trying to get rid of pit orchestras!

This post is very late, but I wanted to make a post about the disappearance and shrinking of pit orchestras, specifically in musical theatre.

The Disappearance of pits:

About 2 months ago, a musical opening on Broadway called Here Lies Love announced there would be no live pit orchestra. Instead, it would all be pre-recorded tracks. While the producers said it was "ArTiStIc ReAsOns" (The show is supposed to feel like a dance club), it was clearly done as a way to save money. There are ways you can creatively incorporate live musicians into a show. Plus, a pit orchestra doesn't always mean classical orchestra. A pit can be made up of drummers, keyboards, guitarists, etc.

Luckily, The Broadway Musicians union was able to get the show to hire 12 musicians (Even though there is a 19 musician minimum in the theatre the show is in). However, this situation has set a bad example, and other producers may try to repeat this whole situation.

The Shrinking of pits:

Phantom of the Opera notably has a rather large pit. On Broadway, the show has 27 pit members (Fun Fact: 11 of them were in the show for the whole 35 years!!). This year, I had the privilege of being in a pit for a local production of the show (Yes, it was a legal production). The production I was in had about 36 people in the pit. However, the west end production of Phantom only has 14 musicians in the pit since it reopened. Compare this to the fact the west end version had a pit of 29 before Covid.

Now, it is understandable that they may have wanted to shorten the pit due to Covid-19. However, the show has shown no signs of bringing back the 15 musicians. What once was a safety precaution is now clearly being done to save money. Not only has the pit been shrunk, but the production itself uses set pieces that are cheaper to operate (For example, They got rid of the iconic angel at the end of Act 1). Phantom has very rich music, and as someone who has played it before, there are many small details that just add to the experience, and a full pit just makes it feel grander.

Your favorite musicals would not exist if there were no pit orchestras. The synthesizers producers have been putting in in place of pits do not give the same effect as a live pit. Audiences deserve to get the full experience of the music. Actors should get to perform with real people! Not recordings! And Instrumental Musicians should be able to get jobs.