I am pretty sure my wife is the greatest stage manager in the history of stage management. Every show she works on is amazing and everyone she works with loves working with her. I am always impressed by her dedication to the process and I always enjoy the product. Her latest, Here Lies Love, is probably her best work yet!
An Imelda Marcos-inspired dance party with music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim and directed by Alex Timbers stretches the boundaries of theater; the audience stands while platforms shift and spin around, with actors dancing tight choreography and singing beautiful melodies over funky beats and lights blasting on a backdrop of video projections real and imagined. It is complete sensory saturation, but with a story and a point. Filipino politics are dirty and ruthless but a beauty queen can paint a veneer over the ugliness. As an audience member, it’s hard to judge her when you’re having a good time. It is only in the end, with a final descent into authoritarian dictatorship and perspective on the people’s revolution in a reflective epilogue, that we realize how easily love and power can lead anyone’s morality astray.