ajhlovestheatre

REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES

Music and lyrics by Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez

Book by Lisa Loomer with Nell Benjamin 

based on the play by Josefina López and the HBO screenplay by López and George LaVoo

directed by Sergio Trujillo 

James Earl Jones Theatre, New York City – until 29 June 2025

running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes including interval

https://www.realwomenhavecurvesbroadway.com

This season of Broadway tuners has already produced one sleeper hit with the transcendant, highly original Maybe Happy Ending, but here’s hoping that this will be a second one. Real Women Have Curves ticks so many boxes as to what makes a great contemporary popular musical that it’s no surprise that audiences are responding to it from beginning to end with a warm roar of approval, generous but genuine laughter, and more than a few tears. 

Like the play and film of the same name that precede it, the show puts plus-sized Latina women front and centre, and although set in 1980s Los Angeles, the prominent plot strand concerning mass deportation of undocumented immigrants (the principal characters are dress makers in a garment factory) has acquired a horrible relevance under the present US administration that the creatives couldn’t have predicted when they began working on the musical. So, Real Women Have Curves is tremendously uplifting, full of hope, heart, humour and poppy, heart-meltingly insistent Latin-tinged music, but an all-too-real threat runs through it like a chilly wind. 

That pure exhilaration and a strong sense of disquiet can co-exist so seamlessly is much to do with Lisa Loomer and Nell Benjamin’s well-considered book which seldom becomes mawkish and features a gallery of really gorgeous characters, and Sergio Trujillo’s direction which is as sensitive, when required, as it is bold. Trujillo is also responsible for the sassy, crowd-pleasing choreography which reaches its apotheosis in the title number, an upbeat but lump-in-the-throat moment which brings the audience ecstatically to its feet acknowledging these glorious women (who by now have stripped to their underwear…you kinda have to experience this for yourself) acknowledging themselves, while a glitterball shaped like a plus-sized dressmaker’s mannequin twirls overhead: it’s life-enhancing theatrical magic.

That title song is just one gem in a score that doesn’t contain a dud. Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez have crafted a series of lilting, poppy numbers infused with Latin musical forms but also, crucially, a potent theatricality. The lyrics are witty and heartfelt and if, in the second half, the songs come a little too thick and fast as a couple of plot developments get hastily resolved, it is a small misstep in a show that in general is a total pleasure.

The story turns on two major plot points: LA-dweller and budding journalist Ana García (Tatianna Córdoba in a wonderful Broadway debut, and looking like a star already) has accepted a place to study writing at Columbia University but is apprehensive about telling her loving but stifling mama (Tony nominee and TV star Justina Machado, glorious) about her move to New York. Meanwhile Ana’s sister, factory leader Estela (Florencia Cuenca, in another fabulous Main Stem bow) has accepted an unrealistic contract to provide a huge number of dresses within a short space of time. In the factory, a team of women pull together to make the order happen, with the shadow of raids and deportation by the government authorities hanging over them. 

These women are beautifully delineated: mature but spicy Pancha (Carla Jimenez), feisty, warm lesbian Prima Fulvia (Sandra Valls), glamorous Rosalí (Jennifer Sanchez) constantly fretting about fitting into the dress for her upcoming wedding, wise-cracking Prima Flaca (Shelby Acosta) and newcomer Itzel (Aline Mayagoitia), worried about her immigrant status. They are a hugely likeable bunch, and book writers Loomer and Benjamin furnish them with a rich mixture of zingers, spikes and genuine feeling. Mayagoitia’s Itzel tears at the heart, even though her plot strand gets slightly abandoned for much of the second half, and Sanchez’s ditzy/neurotic cutie-pie is a gorgeous comic creation, but really you’ll fall in love with every single one of them.

The men are equally wonderful. Mauricio Mendoza is a warm presence as Ana and Estela’s father, navigating his way through living in an all female household, and Mason Reeves is utterly winning as gawky, funny Henry, the young writer whose burgeoning relationship with Ana forms the obligatory love interest. It’s impossible not to care about these people but the script seldom descends to the saccharine. In fact, it has real edge, such as in the way Machado’s engaging but forceful Carmen pokes little jibes about the weight of her daughters, or the points made about the way assimilating into American life can involve painful compromises over one’s cultural identity.

It’s a very pretty show to look at: Arnulfo Maldonado’s sets are vibrantly colourful and prone to sudden, fantastical transformations, such as when a parade of elegant frocks are floated in from above, or massive murals, floral and primal, fly in to dominate the stage. Wilbert Gonzalez and Paloma Young’s costumes marry the humdrum with the exotic and it’s all beautifully lit by Natasha Katz. It all sometimes looks like an explosion in a Desigual warehouse, and frankly I am here for that. John Shivers’s sound design is satisfyingly loud but never overwhelms the humanity, and the brass and rhythm-heavy arrangements (Nadia DiGiallonardo, Huerta, Velez and Rich Mercurio) explode with joyous vitality.

In a crowded season for new musicals, this one bursts through with a rare combination of political relevance, female empowerment, and sheer exhilaration. It’s a terrific couple of hours of theatre in the company of a bunch of women (and their men) that you’ll never forget. Broadway has another must-see.