'Real Women Have Curves' Broadway Review: Latinas Take Cover to Break Free

Great novels and great movies rarely translate into great musicals, much less very good ones. When it comes to suitable source material, a second-rate book or film often makes a more successful transition to the stage. If a novel or a movie is classic, it fits the chosen medium to perfection. Adapting them to the stage automatically destroys what's great. In scene after scene, Lisa Loomer and Nell Benjamin's book for the new musical "Real Women Have Curves" is a vast improvement on George LaVoo and Josefina Lopez's screenplay, which is based on Lopez's play. Where the 2002 film . . .