As the My Neighbor Totoro play finishes its run on the West End and the Death Note musical plots its return to the Barbican, it's easy for American anime-loving theater kids to be jealous of the Brits. Now the off-Broadway scene in New York is getting its first manga-based musical, from source material you might not expect to get the spotlight: Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen by Moyoco Anno .
Having not read the original manga, my biggest source of interest in this show was its composer, Duncan Sheik. Spring Awakening is one of my favorite musicals ever (I played Moritz in a production a couple of years ago), and Sheik's death only a couple of weeks before the Memoirs musical began previews lent a sense of importance to seeing his final work.
The tragic question I have to ask, seeing the musical the night after its official opening, is how much better it could have been if Sheik had lived to see the previews. The adjustments made in those weeks before opening night can make or break a show. While Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen reportedly made adjustments during previews (meaning it wasn't locked in place before previews the way Rent was after Jonathan Larson's similarly untimely passing), missing one of the production's key artists from those adjustments might explain why the show feels a little unpolished.
The tone is all over the place: scenes dealing with sex work clients tend towards broad comedy, while those focused on Colette ( Sophia Anne Caruso ) pining for her toxic boyfriend Léon (and the messes he gets into) go in a more melodramatic direction. Sometimes the different directions mesh well with each other — when a client's kinky fantasy ends on a tinge of sadness or a burst of insight that impacts Colette's personal thinking — but Sheik's lyrics and Leah Nanako Winkler's book often struggle to find the right balance between the literary and the lowbrow.
The Léon romance is frustrating to watch because he just sucks so much that it's impossible to see what Colette sees in him. This frustration, however, comes with worthwhile payoff when it comes to Colette's self-examination on this exact subject. I've known people who've obsessed over people they shouldn't have, and the insights here ring true on that front.
What doesn't work so well in the end is the fate of Carmen (Elsa Keefe), a sex worker who's starting to lose her mind. Keefe's a wonderful stage presence, capable of balancing comedic beats with a tragic arc. However, the character's harsh punishment by a brothel, which, up to this point, has been depicted in an awfully romanticized manner, is such a sudden shift that it feels like the play needed to spend more time to really process it. When it gets back to feel-good empowerment material afterwards, it doesn't feel quite right.
For all of the musical's writing weaknesses, I still had a good time at the theater, and my number one reason for this is the talents of Sophia Anne Caruso . The former Beetlejuice star (who anime fans will recognize as Miss Goldenweek in the live-action One Piece ) brings the house down whenever she gets a solo number, and Sheik wrote some great music for her voice. Her passion sells Colette's emotional development. She's also best equipped among the cast for surviving the show's sound mixing issues (the band can overwhelm other actors' voices).
Situated as a theater in the round, “The Night Egg” venue at The Culture Club is beautifully designed so that the room itself becomes the main set (when there's a change of location, props drop from the ceiling). Even the partial view seats get a great view for much of the up-close choreography, and this ensemble knows how to move. Catherine Zuber's costumes are comparable to her past work on the similarly-themed Moulin Rouge! Broadway show and match the style of the manga.