«Только для женщин»: Мексиканский театральный феномен

Mexican theater play

Sólo Para Mujeres (Just For Women in Spanish) is a Mexican theatre play. It has been running for about a decade. This show was inspired by the 1997 British film Full Monty. Sólo Para Mujeres came after the success of its predecessor, Sólo Para Hombres (Just for Men), a play that starred Lorena Herrera, among others, and which came about after Herrera's participation in the famous telenovela, Dos Mujeres, un Camino. Sólo Para Hombres featured Herrera and other famous Mexican actresses dancing on stage with scant outfits. Sólo Para Mujeres followed the same lines: muscular actors would dance, for an audience that consists mainly of women, wearing underwear only or suggestive clothing. Although Televisa is not directly connected with the play, many of the actors on Sólo Para Mujeres have had previous experience acting in soap operas for the largest Mexican television network. Among those are Alexis Ayala, Jorge Salinas, Sergio Sendel, Alfonso de Nigris and the play's producer, Sergio Mayer. Former Menudo Johnny Lozada also participated at the play for a number of years. The play was not expected to be as successful as Sólo Para Hombres was: Mexico, as with most of Latin America, still has a society with relatively machista views, and so the first expectations for Sólo Para Mujeres were that it would last, at most, a couple of years. The play managed, however, to outlast Sólo Para Hombres.

On May 5, 2005, the production team of Sólo Para Mujeres suffered a tragedy when, during the filming of a video at a Mexico City street, a man who was allegedly driving over the speed limit drove into the scene and crashed his car against the motorcycles used by five members of the Sólo Para Mujeres play, killing actor Edgar Ponce and injuring three others. Many among the public are clamoring for a full investigation of the incident. Among some publicly expressed doubts are the fact that the street had not been closed before the filming of the video, and also that the members of Sólo Para Mujeres were not provided with protective helmets before getting on their motorcycles. Also, driving motorcycles on the street where the tragedy happened is prohibited by the law. Members of the play declared that it was not of their knowledge that driving motorcycles was prohibited on the particular street where the tragedy happened, because they had passed there on their bikes before and no one had admonished them for it. On the other hand, the man who drove the car into the motorcycles was released on bond until the case is seen at a Mexican court. Mayer demonstrated great displeasure when given the news that that man was not in jail anymore.

This show is currently touring the US with presentations in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Arizona and Miami.