Theaterweek	by Anthony Chase

SOME MEN AND

REAL WOMEN

Terrence McNally’s new play, Some Men, begins with two men exchanging wedding vows at the Waldorf Astoria while the guests contemplate their own loves and lives. The tale then reverses gears and sends us vaulting through an historical kaleidoscope, examining same-sex lives and love by way of a tour through some of the major events of 20th-century gay history.

The play opens in Buffalo this week, produced by Buffalo United Artists at the Alleyway Theatre.

“Basically, Some Men is all the events in the past 50 years that have led to same-sex marriage,” McNally has said. And indeed, from the gay clubs of the Harlem Renaissance, to the Stonewall riots, to the bathhouses of the 1970s, to AIDS, to adoptive parents, he fits it all in. There’s even a stop at “Over the Rainbow.” The story is told in 14 rapid vignettes buoyed by McNally’s signature mixture of laughter and sentiment, handled by a parade of gay archetypes—some familiar, some brand new. BUA founder, Javier Bustillos, directs.

McNally has been a favorite of BUA over the years. They’ve produced his Love! Valour! Compassion! twice, including the first-ever production after Broadway. Some Men, too, will make its post-New York debut with BUA. The company has also enjoyed success with McNally’s plays Andre’s Mother and The Lisbon Traviata.

Locally, McNally’s A Man of No Importance was produced at the Andrews Theater by the Irish Classical Theater Company last year. The Kavinoky enjoyed a hit with his Master Class a few years ago. Frankie & Johnny in the Claire de Lune has been seen here, as has Lips Together Teeth Apart. McNally also penned Chita Rivera: the Dancer’s Life, which played Shea’s last season, as well as scripts for The Full Monty, Ragtime, and Kiss of the Spider Woman, winning awards for virtually everything.

Some Men evolved in two stages. Its debut in Philadelphia in 2006 received a cool reception. Bustillos saw it there and put it on his list of “possibles,” admiring McNally’s wit and insight. By the time the show opened in New York, however, the author had reworked everything, even eliminating characters and streamlining situations. Upon hearing the glowing reports, Bustillos paid a return visit to Some Men, which immediately went on his “must have” list for BUA.

The production features BUA stars Jimmy Janowski (Sordid Lives; Die Mommie, Die; The Lady in Question; Rebecca; Dracula; Laramie Project, etc.) and Chris Kelly (Psycho Beach Party; Message to Michael, etc.); as well as Doug Weyand (Making Gay History, Dirty Blond), Tray Ballard (Six Degrees of Separation), Dave Haefner (Martin Yesterday, End of the World Party), Matthew Crehan Higgins (Confessions), Matthew Hurley (Martin Yesterday, Party), Bill Schmidt (Southern Baptist Sissies) and Frank Cannata.

Some Men opens this Friday and plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, through October 27.

REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES

Theatre Plus opens the Buffalo premiere of Josefina López’s Real Women Have Curves this week. The play draws on the author’s own experiences as a Mexican immigrant working in a Los Angeles sewing factory with other Latin women during the 1980s, while waiting for her green card.

Theatre Plus produces plays about women. The title of López’s play is taken from the playwright’s sense of herself as “an average size woman,” but also from her observation that all women have mental curves that define their individuality and the varied challenges they face: Pancha’s possible infertility, Rosali’s anorexia, Carmen’s menopause and so forth. The play is about the struggle of becoming comfortable with the curves that life pitches our way. Specifically, López uses humor to explore the fears and hopes of the women she knew in the factory.

Only 19 years old when she wrote the play, the author was acutely aware of the power of her experience, and of the ways in which being an undocumented worker and a woman of certain proportions marked her as a second-class citizen—or as no citizen at all.

“I was inspired to write Real Women Have Curves shortly after I got my temporary residence card in 1987,” she writes. “I wanted to celebrate becoming ‘legal’ by writing my play about my experiences while working in a sewing factory. I wanted to celebrate the camaraderie between women and the power we have when we work together.”

The acting ensemble for the Theatre Plus production includes Nicole Colón, Kelly Hernández, Smirna Mercedes, Zorenma Mercedes and Erica Ruíz. Victoria Pérez directs.

Performances are Thursday through Saturday, October 4-20, at 8pm at the Main Street Cabaret of the Alleyway Theatre.