Sophia Anne Caruso as Colette, a French prostitute and diarist in Duncan Sheik’s posthumously produced musical, has a moment that struck me as straight out of his “Spring Awakening,” when she lets out a lovelorn cry full of breathtaking angst and melody.

But “Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen,” which opened tonight at a new venue on the ground floor of the former McKittrick Hotel, reminds me far more often of the most recent Broadway production of “Cabaret,”  because of its general slinky suggestiveness, and its staging on an overcrowded platform in the round, almost always bathed in red. The show is billed as the first American musical adaptation of  a manga (Japanese graphic novel), taking its title, its setting in a “maison close” (legal brothel) in fin-de-siecle Paris, and the names of its characters from a manga by Moyoco Anno. But if there is anything uniquely Japanese about the story, it’s crowded out by all the ways it is familiar to New York theatergoers.

.Colette’s angsty song, like much of her misery, is caused by Leon (Cory Jeacoma), whom she has viewed as the love of her life, which is why she moved with him to Paris from up North. But, though he says all the right words, he certainly doesn’t act as if he loves her, which even her Madame (Jenny Powers) and her fellow brothel workers try to make her see in song:
He’ll drink from your cup
Til you’re all used up.

Leon is the one who convinced her to start working at the Night Egg (which is the name both of the brothel, and the new Off-Broadway venue) in order to support him. And that is actually not the creepiest thing he does to her. Indeed, she and the others seem to enjoy their jobs at the Night Egg, as they explain in the opening number, “Your Perversion Is Our Pleasure.”

“Being a whore,” Colette says at one point, “is eighty percent empathy and twenty percent sex. I’m like a psychotherapist with benefits.”

It might help that the clients’ perversions seem made for musical comedy. One man wants to be seen as a bird, another as a dog, a third as a young girl with hairy legs, who wants his legs shaved.  

And then there is Sakae (Marc delaCruz ), a Japanese expatriate from a rich family who aspires to be a writer, and has been hanging out at the Night Egg for material.

A pivotal moment is when, noticing how perceptive she is, he pays her to fill a notebook with her thoughts. He asks in song:

What makes you laugh?
What makes you cry?
What do you long for?
… you perversion your bullseye?
and your predilections?
For what do you long?
Can you resist your darkest urges?
Or are they just too strong?
If you write what is real
You’ll never go wrong

The bulk of the story becomes Colette’s observations about the characters around her, alternating with scenes of Leon being a ne’er’ do well, eventually (spoiler alert) meeting his match with Madame’s rival, the silkily villainous Nana (Nkeki Obi-Melekwe)

I can’t say that the focus allows any deep psychological insights, but it does give each of the principal cast members a time to show off their powerhouse vocals, and the ensemble their Olympian bodies (and Sophia Anne Caruso to do both.)

 I also can’t recall any particular melodies among Duncan Sheik’s  14 songs in the show. But add this score to the ones he did not just for “Spring Awakening” but Alice by Heart, American Psycho, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Secret Life of Bees, and what “Memoirs of Amorous Gentleman” drives home is what a consistent, eclectic talent we last when Duncan Sheik died last month at the age of 56.

Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen
The Night Egg at the Culture Club through January 3
Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.
Tickets: $49 – $129
Music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik and book by Leah Nanako Winkler
Based on the manga graphic novel by Moyoco Anno
Directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford,
Scenic design by Scott Pask, costume design by Catherine Zuber, lighting design by Brian Tovar, sound design by Cody Spencer, hair & wig design by Tom Watson, makeup design by Veli Sadiku
Cast: Sophia Anne Caruso as ‘Colette,’ Cory Jeacoma as ‘Léon,’ Nkeki Obi-Melekwe as ‘Nana,’ Marc delaCruz  as ‘Sakae’, and Jenny Powers as ‘Madame’, Leanne Antonio, Kailin Brown, Michael Everett, Elsa Keefe, Jaedynn Latter, Austin Lesch, Nika Lindsay, Caleb Marshall, Jessie Peltier, Michael Starr, and Thomas Winter

Photos by Andy Henderson