Convoluted plot cools off avant-garde ‘Fashionistas’

Friday, Oct. 15, 2004 | 8:45 a.m.

Plotting is not the strong point of the adult-film industry. The less plot the better -- at least, most hardcore fans like it that way.

While John Stagliano's sanitized stage version of his hit 2003 adult film "Fashionistas" is interesting from many angles, the storyline is extremely complicated and hard to follow.

It is plot-heavy as opposed to plot-lite.

Stagliano should have taken a lesson from the films he has been making for more than 20 years and kept the story simple.

The avant-garde, soft-core, ballet-esque production premiered last week at Krave, the new "omni-sexual" nightclub on the Strip.

"Fashionistas" joins "Zumanity," the Cirque du Soleil production at New York-New York, in pushing the sexual envelope to the extreme, exploring the limits of what audiences will pay to see.

It's safe to say that this gender-bending show with a cast of characters that includes homosexuals, cross-dressers, dominatrixes, submissives and S&M practitioners is not for everyone.

Mainstream theatergoers should be warned that what they are going to see, while not in the least pornographic, is highly erotic and explores a variety of deviant behavior -- albeit in an artistic fashion that is energized by a young cast of enthusiastic performers who pour their souls into their roles.

The leads include Enrique Lugo as Antonio, a male fashion designer; Kelly Adkins as Helena, a fiery redheaded dominatrix; and Marceea Moreno as Jesse, an aspiring clothing designer who works for Helena.

Bottom line, "Fashionistas" is the story of a complex love triangle involving the three main characters. It has a cast of 19 who wear some eye-popping, off-the-charts costumes designed by Jose' Luis Vinas.

The production is a multimedia event, making liberal use of video and computer technology that help lift the production out of the realm of the ordinary.

Along the way, the audience is exposed to various alternative lifestyles, fetishes and some extremely good choreography.

There is no dialogue and only a smattering of songs. The story is told mainly through dance -- but "Fashionistas" is no "Swan Lake."

Exposition becomes problematic. Unless you are familiar with the storyline, you could be lost from the beginning. It would be helpful if, when fans buy their tickets, they would be given a program that includes a brief narrative describing what they are about to see so that they don't miss some of the finer points to the story.

Otherwise, some elements of the production will seem pointless to the unwary fan.

For example, a key plot device is the use of an "Easter Egg," which is a hidden function buried within some computer programs -- they might be pop-up jokes, animations or elaborate games. In this production, the hidden Easter Egg is a video that explores various fetishes.

While the male lead sits at his computer off to the side of the stage and clicks on the fetishes, the scenes come to life at center stage, delving into obsessions with feet, breasts, buttocks and domination.

Much of the live action onstage is simply a reflection of what is appearing on the computer. The production, then, is a complex blend of the real and unreal, and without a program it's difficult to tell where reality ends and fantasy begins.