NEW YORK >> The Broadway musical “Here Lies Love” is a rollicking karaoke dance party with an immersive staging and, for the first time in Broadway history, organizers say, an all-Filipino cast. It’s a good time — until it’s not.

At its center is the brutal regime of Ferdinand (played by Jose Llana) and Imelda Marcos (Arielle Jacobs) — the former president and first lady of the Philippines who committed countless human rights abuses and violent crimes during his 21-year reign from 1965-1986.

David Byrne, who wrote the music and lyrics for the show with electronic dance musician Fatboy Slim, has said the musical, which focuses on the life of Imelda Marcos, interpolates karaoke as a means of replicating for audiences how it felt for Filipinos who lived through the Marcos regime.

But, some argue, telling the story of the Marcos regime through disco does not work when the audience lacks the necessary context. The production, opening Thursday, has faced accusations that it trivializes the suffering of thousands of Filipinos.

Here’s what to know about the Marcoses, the People Power Revolution of 1986 and the controversies the show has faced.

Who was Ferdinand Marcos?

Ferdinand Marcos, the longest-serving president of the Philippines, was a dictator who placed the country under martial law from 1972-1981. In 1983, opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. (played by Conrad Rica­mora) was assassinated at the airport as he was returning from exile; an investigatory panel concluded that a military plot was responsible. The assassination led to a series of events that culminated with Aquino’s widow, Corazon, becoming president in 1986.

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With the election of Aquino, Marcos fled the Philippines for Hawaii, where he died in 1989 without ever facing trial in the United States on criminal charges that he plundered the Philippine Treasury of more than $100 million. (However, during the next decade, a jury in Hawaii awarded damages of almost $2 billion against his estate for the killing and torture of almost 10,000 Filipinos. Collecting on that judgment has been difficult, though, and despite ongoing efforts, victims have seen only a fraction of that amount.)

Who is Imelda Marcos?

Imelda Marcos, who married Ferdinand in 1954, became the face of the regime’s enormous wealth. A former teenage beauty queen known for her love of nightlife and disco music, she and her family raided government coffers to finance a lavish lifestyle while millions of Filipinos lived in poverty.

A Philippine court convicted her on corruption charges in 2018 for creating private foundations to hide her wealth, but she appealed the case and is unlikely to see jail time because of her age. She is now 94.

What was the People Power Revolution?

The Marcos era ended in February 1986 after a series of nonviolent street marches. The People Power Revolution, with more than 2 million Filipinos participating, condemned the regime’s human rights violations and electoral fraud. The demonstrations ended with Ferdinand Marcos’ departure.

Why has the show been controversial?

A number of Filipinos have objected to what they argue is the show’s trivialization of the Marcoses’ crimes and sympathy toward Imelda Marcos. Actress Sara Porkalob, who recently appeared on Broadway in “1776,” wrote in 2017 that the musical, then playing at the Seattle Repertory Theater, one of the show’s several regional and off-Broadway engagements since its premiere at New York’s Public Theater in 2013, “paints a glossy veneer over the Philippines’ national trauma and America’s role in it.”

Those objections have become particularly salient for many now; Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was elected president of the Philippines last year.

“David Byrne’s attempt to humanize Imelda Marcos insults the impoverished people she and her family stole from,” Ruben Carranza, a former government lawyer who prosecuted Imelda Marcos’ hidden wealth cases, wrote in a recent email. “And because it is playing at a time when the Marcoses have lied their way back to power, ‘Here Lies Love’ will only reinforce those lies and serve, intentionally or not, the larger Marcos agenda of denying truth and revising the history of their dictatorship.”

Others, however, have praised the show’s approach, contending that it “mirrors Filipino complicity and American blindness through its disco-controlled experiment on its audience,” as Filipino novelist Gina Apostol wrote in 2014 after seeing the show off-Broadway at the Public Theater.

How has the production responded?

In a statement released this year after criticism resurfaced after the announcement of the Broadway transfer, producers wrote that “Here Lies Love” is “an anti-Marcos show” intended to combat disinformation with “a creative way of re-­information.” The show has also hired a Filipino American actress, Giselle Tongi, known as G, as a cultural and community liaison.