Written by Shelley Danzy, contributor
“I will never have to lie on applications…except for maybe my weight.”
This is just one of the countless unmistakable lines in award-winning playwright Josefina López’s “Real Women Have Curves,” that makes an audience laugh and contemplate at the same time. This stage play is currently being performed at the Aurora Theatre in Gwinnett County.
Within the confines of a small sewing factory in Los Angeles, the audience is introduced to five women (varying in age), connected not only by their Mexican-American heritage, but also by the intricacies of life’s journey. This laugh-out-loud comedy is perfectly balanced with weightier matters of self-esteem, immigration, desire, and resilience.
Ana (Lorena Morales) often retreats to her secret writing room – the bathroom – to retrieve her composition book to journal. Ana dreams of going to college in New York to become a writer. In the meantime, she finds herself among four other Latinas, observing, learning and pondering society’s preconceptions of immigrants – physically, intellectually and emotionally.
It’s probably not often that a playwright would travel from the West Coast to Atlanta to see a local production of her show that’s been produced in numerous playhouses all over the country. López stated that this production is 70% autobiographical. Ana’s experience is a reflection of López’s experience, having spent 13 years as an undocumented Latina in East Los Angeles.
Directed by Luis Hernández, the Aurora Theatre’s production is unique in that it is only the fourth theatre to produce the show entirely in Spanish. “Las Mujeres Verdaderas Tienen Curvas (Real Women Have Curves)” is a testament of how art can break barriers cross-culturally. Bold dialogue delivered with such passion compelled most of the audience (including me) to watch the actors more than the easy-to-follow English supertitles, which are unobtrusively shown on screens to the left and right of the stage.
The theatre itself provides intimate seating surrounding the stage, so that the audience experiences not only the characters’ memorable words and expressions, but also the authentic elements of the set. From sewing machines with foot pedals to the oversized ‘80s microwave and boom box, the audience engages in the characters’ work environment. Even a subtly placed prop stands out. Among the flowing fuchsia fabric around the sewing machines, there is a tiny pink hand weight (probably no more than a few pounds), upright, with an American flag sticker wrapped in its center. I imagine this to be a gentle reminder of the “weight” of extraordinary attention placed upon body image in America, in addition to all of the other challenges that women face. Here you have the irony of real women, who have curves, working feverishly to make dresses for the fictitious Glitz Company in sizes that neither of the women making them can wear.
“You feel invisible when you’re undocumented,” López commented after the performance. “This [play] humanizes immigrants.” Characters Ana, Carmen (Irma Cristancho), Pancha (Elei Reyes), and Rosali (Polly Garcia) have their “green cards”; Estela (Blanca Agüero) – owner of the sewing factory – does not, and is in constant fear of being caught by “La Migra” (Spanish slang for immigration authorities).
“This was the greatest story of my life,” López continued. “This is what’s real. It’s tragic that [so many] feel that we are supposed to apologize for being women.”
Josefina López is currently developing a musical version of “Real Women Have Curves” for Broadway. López co-wrote a film adaptation of “Real Women Have Curves,” which won the Humanitas Prize for Screenwriting in 2002. Although best known for “Curves,” she has had more than 80 other productions of her plays performed and is a painter, poet, performer and designer. She is also the author of the novel “Hungry Woman in Paris.”
“Real Women Have Curves” will run through April 26 at the Aurora Theatre in Lawrenceville, GA. This is certainly a production for women — and men — with humor, drama, anxiety and hope; displaying all of the other “curves” that may help us all endure this wonderfully complex journey called life.
For tickets and more information, visit https://www.auroratheatre.com/.
