In the second act of Real Women Have Curves: The Musical, opening tonight on Broadway at the James Earl Jones Theatre, the women working in a hot, small, ramshackle California dress factory momentarily break free of inhibition and ageism and the body shame over their various sizes and shapes and, following the lead of the defiant, soon-off-for-college Ana (Tatianna Córdoba), one by one strip down to their underwear and sing the title song. It’s a scene that’s funny, tender, compassionate and so well-performed by the eight women on stage that it earned a mid-show standing ovation the night I was in attendance.
The scene also succinctly and entertainingly presents the humor, pride, tenacity and bravery of a Latino community under constant siege and scrutiny.
Unfortunately, there are too few other moments in Real Woman Have Curves that soar like that, that deliver the joy and delight of shaking off the many worries and fears that burden these eight women 24/7. Based on the same-named play and subsequent HBO movie, the musical set in 1987 focuses on the eight friends and coworkers who sew dresses in a small, hidden warehouse space, with all but one of the women – young Ana – undocumented. The Reagan era amnesty program, with its length-of-time requirements and insistence on records clean of even a driving ticket, seems to offer scant promise.
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With Ana being the sole American citizen – a birthright citizen – she has long taken on the burdensome role of protector for the family-owned dress factor and for her family itself: elder sister Estela (Florencia Cuenca), mother Carmen (Justina Machado) and father Raul (Mauricio Mendoza) are all undocumented immigrants from Mexico.
The musical is driven chiefly by two plotlines: Ana’s secret scholarship to Columbia University in New York (she knows her mother will demand she stay at the factory and with the family), and a huge make-or-break 200-dress order the small factory has received. The outcomes of either won’t surprise anyone – this is a musical with a happy ending where dreams come true, or at least survive another day.
While the hardship and terror of living in constant fear of a knock on the door or a tap on your shoulder is repeatedly conveyed in Real Women, the musical somehow flattens the experience with triteness, cliche and lack of real surprise. Ana’s coming-of-age-follow-your-dreams story is trite and familiar, with no real stakes at play, and the racism and cruelty that fuels U.S. immigration policy feels watered down here, save for one moment of blunt bigotry that seems to come from a grittier production than this often light comedy.
If the book (Lisa Loomer with Nell Benjamin) only occasionally rises above earnestness, and the mariachi-meets-musical theater songs by Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez are pleasant enough in the moment, Real Women finds its true strength in its cast (fine singers all, and well-directed and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo). Machado as mother Carmen (and who is known to TV viewers for the rebooted One Day At A Time), is very good at both comic zingers and cutting put-downs, and she’s even better in dramatic moments when she lets long-simmering resentments burst open.
Cuenca, as Carmen’s eldest daughter Estela, nicely conveys both the heavy load of first-child responsibility – she runs the dress shop, seeing to every detail, including protecting her workers – and the love-resentment dichotomy she feels for younger sister, U.S. citizen and college-bound Ana.
Córdoba, making her Broadway debut as Ana, is an amiable performer, but she doesn’t quite yet have the subtlety of motion or nuance of expression that could transform Ana into something more than a character type – the brainy kid who knows smarts and a break can get her far away from a life she hates. Here that life is a cramped sweaty factory, but it could just as easily be a coal mine, the criminal underworld or a Kansas farm. Whatever the place or situation, the old life has to exert a pull on the leaver or the leaving means little. Ana is incidental to the factory, feels unbound to it, and the only thing holding her back is her mother’s stubborn desire to keep the family together. Columbia University? Ana’s as good as there the moment she opens the letter.
Title: Real Women Have Curves: The MusicalVenue: Broadway’s James Earl Jones TheatreDirection & Choreography By: Sergio TrujilloBook: Lisa Loomer with Nell Benjamin, based on the play by Josefina López and the HBO screenplay by Josefina López and George LavooMusic & Lyrics By: Joy Huerta and Benjamin VelezCast: Tatianna Córdoba, Justina Machado, Florencia Cuenca, Shelby Acosta, Carla Jimenez, Aline Mayagoitia, Itzel, Mauricio Mendoza, Mason Reeves, Jennifer Sánchez, Sandra Valls, and Ariana Burks, Quincy Hampton, Zeus Mendoza, Claudia Mulet, Christopher M. Ramirez, Monica Tulia Ramirez, Shadia Fairuz, Elisa Galindez, and Omar Madden.Running time: 2 hr 15 min (including intermission)
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