KR Hall Production: 'Here Lies Love'

Show details:
Friday, 13 February 2009
7.30pm
University Cultural Centre Hall
Tickets at $15
Please approach Qingyou or Steph to place orders.

Synopsis:
Kent Ridge Hall proudly presents Here Lies Love, an entirely original musical blending postmodern theatrical aesthetics with the razzle-dazzle exuberance of old-school Broadway. Starring a talented cast and a live band playing genres from jazz, bossa nova to rock, we invite you to immerse yourselves in a world of showbiz, love, lies, and death.

Here Lies Love spins off on one of the most familiar stories in popular culture: the star-crossed lovers of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Taking apart the story’s conventional portrayal of love, the musical asks new questions: what does it mean to love someone? What if love is just a web of lies that we spin to protect ourselves or the ones we love?

A theatre group is racing against time to put together a lavish musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet when the director calls a halt to rehearsals. He is displeased with the actors’ lack of passion and tells them about a tragic love affair in his own past; one that was so fiery and consuming that he has made it his life’s work to tell that story.

Shift back to the present. Tempers fray as the musical’s premiere draws nearer. Tension brews between the director and his lead actor, who has been his favoured protégé for more than ten years. The feisty young lead actress starts to challenge the director’s domineering, obsessive control over the lead actor. But as the two leads forge a tentative, genuine relationship beyond the characters that they play on stage, the mystery behind the director and lead actor’s past begins to unravel.

It becomes clear that the director is lying about what really happened in the past. The sweeping, romantic love story that he constructed has its ugly side of obsession, selfish desires, and a fatal power struggle between himself and the lead actor’s mother.

Past and present collide as the lead actor decides to confront the director about his lies. But the show must go on – and for this story to end happily, everyone must still, ultimately, play fictional roles.

If life lies, can it be art? If love lies, is it still love?

More photos
[Click to enlarge]

See you there
Show your love & support for the KR Hall Production team once again!

Supported by KRAC