Theatre in Review: Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen (The Night Egg at the Culture Club)If you're going to the trouble of visiting a bordello, you should have a little pleasure, a quality hard to find in Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen. This new musical, based on a manga graphic novel, unfolds mostly inside The Night Egg, a Parisian brothel of the early twentieth century, offering a parade of fetishes performed by a company of semi-undressed actors in various groupings and gropings. But Leah Nanako Winkler's book is too busy totting up the wages of sin to give us a good time. The house's hardest-working girl is Colette, from the provinces, who spends her earnings on her no-good boyfriend Leon, a would-be artist. Leon protests eternal devotion while throwing away her francs on bad racing tips and the favors of Nana, a domineering (but much classier) prostitute. Leading Colette's client list is Sakae, heir to a Japanese fortune but slumming in Paris to write a novel. Creatively blocked and seeking inspiration, he asks Colette to keep a diary of the goings-on at the Night Egg. She's not just a whore; she's a researcher! And, to be fair, Colette doesn't miss a trick. Much of < i> Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen laboriously tries to make comedy of the customers' bizarre desires. One dresses up as a bird. Another hides in a trunk and achieves multiple orgasms spying on the girls dressed as circus clowns. Yet another dresses as Bo-Peep and submits to symbolic shearing, having his legs shaved. (Compared to him, the guy on the dog leash is relatively banal.) Such are the pleasures these men can't get at home, but which, to an observer, are increasingly tedious to watch. The score by Duncan Sheik, who died much too soon last month, is on the morose side, lacking the edgy rhythms and often-compelling melodies of his biggest success, Spring Awakening. Nor do they do much to illuminate the characters: Leon. played by Cory Jeacoma, is a standard-issue cad and tough guy -- un dur, as the French would say -- from the background of a Marcel Pagnol film. Sakae (Marc delaCruz) is a blank slate, a largely passive observer from the sidelines who, late in the evening, undergoes a spectacular collapse. As Colette, Sophia Anne Caruso brings the same sense of disenchantment that informed her depressed Goth teenager in the musical Beetlejuice. She possesses a mighty vocal belt, but enunciation isn't her strong suit, so her big solos are more notable for their loudness than intelligibility. And her character is drab; perhaps if we saw her mind catching fire as she records the life around her, she might be more compelling. As it is, she is the sullen center of a downbeat, and not particularly erotic, show. Nkeki Obi-Melekwe has the production's standout voice as Nana, who, as it happens, also has an interesting backstory involving the Night Egg. As the madam-in-charge, Jenny Powers effectively lords it over her employees, and her singing is, as usual, impeccable. Rob Ashford, who choreographed as well as directed, works up various tableaux featuring couplings, trios, and orgiastic pileups (sometimes with men writhing behind giant keyholes), but all have a slightly mechanical feel. You can tell everyone is playacting. The best thing about Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen is the stunning production design. Scott Pask drapes the space in red Austrian curtains and period chandeliers, lowering in a vast bed on the circular stage when it's time for a romp. It's very Kit Kat Klub, but also eminently suited to this show's needs. Lighting designer Brian Tovar creates an atmosphere thick with languor and lust, enlivening the numbers with forest-of-beams looks and sinister uplighting from units lined along the stage perimeter. Catherine Zuber's costumes often carry a hint of the fetishistic, which she fully indulges here, creating an array of bustiers, diaphanous wraps, and thigh-high boots; she dresses the men equally well, especially Sakae, whose gorgeous coat is a plot point. Cody Simpson's sound is extremely present and usually intelligible, except when Caruso sings. Winkler's book is filled with anachronistic references, things like crockpots and beach balls; at one point, someone comments that the situation is "a tale as old as time." (Imagine Beauty and the Beast's Mrs. Potts wandering into this depraved joint!) I can't tell if this is a strategy or if nobody involved cared about historical fidelity. Near the end, Colette's literary career takes off, leaving one with the unsettling idea that Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen pretends to be about Colette, author of Gigi, Cherie, and dozens of other works. While the real Colette knew plenty about women kept by men, she surely didn't toil in bawdy houses. It's just one more thing to leave one shrugging as one exits into the Manhattan night. --David Barbour 
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