Disco and despots: Filipino-Americans grapple with Broadway musical about Marcos family

In September, Filipino professors Nerve Macaspac from Queens College and Lara Saguisag from New York University launched an online study guide, compiling readings and other resources that seek to help the audiences of Here Lies Love to contextualise the show using credible sources of information.

The academics were concerned about how the musical’s omissions of historical facts, as well as the creative liberties the production took for the sake of storytelling, could risk contributing to the whitewashing and historical revisionism of the Marcos Sr dictatorship.

Courts in Manila and abroad have affirmed that the Marcoses amassed illegal wealth while in power. In 2018, a Philippine court convicted Imelda on seven counts of graft for illegally creating private organisations in Switzerland while she held various government positions under her husband’s rule.

These were not explicitly mentioned in the musical.

Assistant Professor Macaspac said: “It seems like Imelda is portrayed as a victim of circumstance, that she became evil and criminal because she was a victim of infidelity, that she was pressured as a woman in high society. That kind of denies her active role in the dictatorship, meaning her active role in the crimes against the Filipino people.”

The production has made tweaks to contextualise and update Here Lies Love.

During the show, a screen now projects data from Amnesty International saying that 70,000 people were imprisoned, 34,000 were tortured, and 3,240 were killed under Marcos Sr.

Just before the cast performs the final song about the revolution, the DJ appears onstage to say that history is now repeating itself, as the only son and namesake of the dictator is currently the Philippine president.

But these concessions are not enough for Associate Professor Saguisag, who feels pained after repeatedly watching Here Lies Love to complete the study guide she launched with Prof Macaspac. She is a daughter of former senator Rene Saguisag, a human rights lawyer who was arrested during the Marcos Sr years.

“To be honest, it’s hurtful to see (the show) as somebody who grew up during that period,” Prof Saguisag said. “It’s just kind of like having to relive your trauma, and then you’re not given the support to process that trauma when the curtain falls.”

This is not lost on the cast and producers of Here Lies Love, who have met the two professors and even invited them to watch the show.