CMU School of Drama


Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Funny and Titillating, REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES Opens Big at Pasadena Playhouse

BWW Review: The film of Josefina Lopez's Real Women Have Curves in 2002 was a big hit in art houses and won several Sundance prizes including an audience award for Best Actresses Lupe Ontiveros and America Ferrera, long before her Ugly Betty fame. Lopez's semi-autobiographical play from the 90s about the garment industry and the Latina women who struggle to survive in it - the basis for the film - is currently running at the Pasadena Playhouse through October 4 and has terrific direction from Seema Sueko and a closely connected ensemble of five actresses.

1 comment:

Alex Reed said...

I don’t really know how well this show is going to in the Pasadena playhouse. Its target audience, seeming to be Latinos, feminists and show goers, do exist in that are abut not in the numbers necessary to keep the show attendance up. Ignoring the technical of it though, the show itself sounds a little bland really. Maybe it’s the way the review is written, poorly, that makes it seem like just another “family that sticks together” piece, but in reading the review the characters seem really one-dimensional. They all have stock profiles, edited slightly to make them fit the plot, and the one moment of “real women have curves” in the factory take away from the depth of the title more than it adds to it. All in all, the show seems very plastic, pleasing to the eye at first but lacking in the depth necessary to give it a long run.