Some men like to keep a record of their sexual conquests. A candid camera is handy in the digital age, as was shown by Edison Chen, the Hong Kong star whose scandal early this year involved starlets and very private photos.

In The Memorandum, a Parisian man dutifully writes down the profiles of all the women who happen to bump into his life - 134 in all - in a black notebook. But someone points out a small inaccuracy - there is one woman recorded twice because she appears three years apart and has now turned into two separate entries.

Jean-Claude Carrire's play Aide Memoire (The Memorandum) features only two characters: the Parisian man who lives in a small apartment and a woman who literally forces herself into his life. Produced by Xu Ying and directed by Guo Shixing, the story takes on a timeless feel, with an emphasis on human relationships in modern society that could have been set in any country.

Zhao Lixin (right) and Zheng Zheng star in the Chinese production of Carrire's very French yet very relevant play. [File photo]

This premiere of the prolific writer's first stage play, is running until Nov 2 at the small venue of the Capital Theater in downtown Beijing. The set is sparse: a closet, a desk, a chair and a somewhat abstract bed, all white and slightly translucent, adding to the tone of modernity and bare essentials. There is not much fun in this environment - except maybe the hanky-panky that is being taken note of.

The intimacy of the set and the theater helps get across the multiple layers and complexity of the story: Is the man really a member of the sexual revolution, or is he just daydreaming to make up for his loneliness? Is he the one who made the woman pregnant many years ago and is now the target of her revenge? How much of what she says is true? Have they met before?

The characters, played by Zhao Lixin and Zheng Zheng, start off as people we know but keep revealing new facets of themselves. In the end, the audience is left with many questions: Who are these people? Why do they act this way? Does life in a modern city have to swerve between promiscuity and isolation?

The second half of the play is especially fascinating as the faade starts to peel off and the nuances of the characterizations become apparent. The actors get more and more involved emotionally as the plot takes sudden twists.

The acting style is somewhat different from that of most Luis Bunuel movies written by Carriere. In Belle de Jour or The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, actors usually have a deadpan expression, which contrasts with - and accentuates - the absurdity of life as depicted in these movies. In the Beijing production, the acting is more realistic and serious, a tradition carried on in Chinese theater.

There is a bittersweet moment by the end when the two seem to head for "happily hereafter", and there is also a tragic tone underneath. But overall, it gently leads the audience to thinking about their own lives rather than laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.

About the only place for laughter is when the woman mentions some prostitute who has slept with 75,000 men, and then Jean-Jacque, the man, blurts out something like "That's enough to fill a whole stadium". Living in a populous country like China, a giant stadium teeming with humanity is easy to imagine, but the gulf between each one of them cannot be filled with one-night stands. It needs communal experiences such as watching a thought-provoking play.

(China Daily October 28, 2008)