Review: AMATORY ASYLUM, Wellington Members Club

House of Kittens takes over the Wellington Members Club and turns it into a sort of castle of pleasure. The dress code they installed sums up the evening perfectly: elegant, medical, fetish. Through theatrical movement-led vignettes, they examine sexual desire and attraction using erotic storytelling to entrance with their tale of liberation.

Doctor Lili La Fleur, head of the Amatory Asylum, has invited experts from all over the world to witness the progress that her establishment has made in psychosexual therapy. As the night progresses, we observe the patients as they take agency, expressing and freeing themselves of the constraints superimposed by society.

The show is naughty by nature. The audience is treated to striptease after striptease in blasts of skin, fishnets, and stilettos. The sexually charged scenes span a variety of fetishes and explore the female figure quite thoroughly. It's slightly disappointing that this said figure seems to be narrowed down to being white and slim. Amatory Asylum celebrates one type of body and one alone, instead of being the feast it could have been if director Sophie Cohen had left the cookie cutter at home. She shapes the piece around male fantasies, employing a clear and specific gaze through which the cast is seen.

This makes the event swing between its being performance art and a glorified strip club. Inclusivity aside, it's entertaining and titillating. The company consists of mainly dancers who incorporate their character's fixation into their routines. Each patient is introduced with a brief rundown of their fetish projected on the glass wall of the observation room. This and a short runway host the performances, granting the cast different levels of proximity with the public as they tease or estrange them with their bodies.

Video interludes offer hot and bothered ladies in often medical outfits experimenting with each other (nothing too risqué, it's important to notice this isn't a sex dungeon or anything of the likes - it's a theatre performance!) to allow the company the chance to change the sets and prepare for the next scenario. Some of these could be marginally quicker, as the pace is lightly affected and slowed down while it all happens.

As it is, Amatory Asylum plays on safe and solid ground. It's relatively daring with its nipple pasties and tiny thongs, but fits into a patriarchal mould that's far from breaking any boundaries or preconceived ideas. In the "real world" fetishes actually couldn't possibly cater for a more extensive range of fancies, therefore personifying them as done in this occasion feels rather limiting. The line-up, however, hands out what it promises. People in the crowd get to enjoy a sexed-up game of tag led by incredibly sensual women who aren't afraid to give it all, quite literally.

This menagerie provokes and charms, presenting a radical ownership of femininity that could, in short, be taken a step further. Voyeuristic and mischievous, the show can certainly improve but, even at this stage, it delivers the goods.

Amatory Asylum runs at the Wellington Members Club on Jermyn Street on selected dates throughout October and November.

Photo credit: the production

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