Florencia Cuenca and Company (Photo: Julieta Cervantes)

Real Women Have Curves

By Julia Polinsky

Charming, tuneful, heartwarming, eye-filling, and predictable (but it doesn't matter), Real Women Have Curves proves that everything old can be new again. And that's just fine, thank you!

This musical version of Real Women Have Curves has had a couple of lives before it became a Broadway musical. It started out as a play, written by Josefina Lopez, 35 years ago. In 2002, it was made into an HBO film. Now it's on Broadway, where Tony-winning director/choreographer Sergio Trujillo, book writers Lisa Loomer and Nell Benjamin, and composers/lyricists Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez have taken a no-surprises immigrant strivers/coming-of-age story and shaped it into a rousing, crowd-pleasing musical.

Set in 1987, Real Women Have Curves tells the story of Ana (the wonderful Tatianna Córdoba), a super-smart high school senior in East Los Angeles, who, just as the show opens, receives her acceptance letter and scholarship to study writing at Columbia University. Great stuff, except she has not told anyone in her family that she applied. She's the daughter of immigrants and the only member of her family who is a citizen; the family rely on her heavily, and not just at home.

The family dressmaking business, run by her sister Estela (Florencia Cuenca) is a literal sweatshop - lots of jokes about the broken fan, the heat, the terrible sewing machines, the sweat. Estela, who designs her own dresses, dreams of establishing her own fashion line: "Doña Estela" rather than Donna Karan. When her factory receives an order for 200 dresses, deliverable in 3 weeks, Estela and her mother Carmen (a terrific Justina Machado) enlist Ana to sew. Mrs. Wright, who makes the order, (Claudia Mulet in the performance I saw) says that if they're late, she won't pay, and she means it.

Jennifer Sánchez, Aline Mayagoitia, Sandra Valls, Florencia Cuenca, Shelby Acosta, Carla Jimenez (Photo: Julieta Cervantes)

The workers in the factory (Jennifer Sanchez, Carla Jimenez, Shelby Acosta, Sandra Valls, Aline Maygoitia), all women, all undocumented, and all desperate to succeed at making those 200 dresses, need Ana to work with them. Ana would rather be at her unpaid internship, writing for a newspaper, but she does what must be done. As Carmen says, she goes from not being paid by strangers to not being paid by family. ("You're welcome.")

Even though the Reagan administration had instituted an amnesty for the undocumented, Estela is not eligible, through a convoluted plot point that is somewhat crowbarred in to the story. She needs Ana to stay, to be the legal citizen, sign checks, deal with the landlord. Be the face of the factory. Who needs dreams? Sleep less.

The show throws in the very real fear of deportation and the INS, a subplot that plays out in a harrowing scene when Ana finds out just exactly how hard it is to fight the system. Add in a crush on Henry, a cute African-American boy every bit as smart and driven and college-bound as she is (Quincy Hampton in the performance I saw). Mix well with body image issues, family responsibilities, and menopause. Stir in humor and pathos, and make a musical out of that.

Mason Reeves, Tatianna Córdoba (Photo: Julieta Cervantes)

Composers and lyricists Joy Huerta (of the Grammy-winning duo Jesse & Joy) and Benjamin Velez offer up a Latin-pop inflected score with a couple of absolute show stoppers. The title song, "Real Women Have Curves" not only brightens the air with its winning sound, but showcases the cast, a group of curvy women indeed, who are sick of the heat in the sweatshop and whip off their outer clothes. The spontaneous standing ovation for these real-looking women singing and dancing in their underwear is richly deserved. Other song highlights: a killingly funny number about menopause, "Adios Andres," is also a wow of a crowd pleaser; the two numbers sung by Henry and Ana, "Already Know You" and "Doin' It Anyway" are also lovely.

Book writers Lisa Loomer and Nell Benjamin have supplied snappy, funny dialogue that makes their characters people, more than types. Scenic and video designers Arnulfo Maldonado and Hana S. Kim give Real Women Have Curves a warm/hot color palette and a look that could be straight off a mural in East LA, as well as providing a truly stifling factory, and a chillingly horrid detention center.

In the end, Real Women Have Curves offers no surprises. Good triumph; Ana gets blessings from her family on her journey to become more ("Maybe a congresswoman?"); the dresses get done; the workers get paid; all's well.

Real Women Have Curves is a delightful, tuneful couple of hours of optimism in a real-world season that could use it.

Real Women Have Curves

At the James Earl Jones Theatre

138 West 48^th St.

Tickets: https://www.telecharge.com/Real-Women-Have-Curves-tickets?AID=BWY001451600

Running time: 2:10