What's in a name?

Plenty, if it includes a certain three-letter word.

Sex sells, so "The History of Sex" must sell as well, right?

Well, it wasn't quite so simple, say the producers of the Golden Nugget's new revue. "It wasn't our intent to come out with this thing that says `sex' so everybody reads it as a teaser," says Golden Nugget president Bob Sheldon. It's just that the show was conceived as a cabaret revue about the history of sex, so the phrase kept resurfacing.

Equally important: In the history of Las Vegas, it seems just about every one-word title based on double-entendres or a titillating catch phrase -- from "Saddle Tramps" to "A Bare Touch of Vegas" -- has been used. And that might be for the better. Other names might have "made (the show) seem like it's something it wasn't. It's not showgirls, it's not T&A," Sheldon says.

The fresh input extends beyond the title, and Mirage Resorts' typically droll advertising. Producer Ted Pappas says the title is "not sleazy but also kind of sophisticated, which is what we're hoping the show is." "Sex" continues a Las Vegas tradition that goes back at least to 1961, when "Vive les Girls" brought showroom-quality production values and a revue format into a lounge setting at the Dunes. In that sense, the new show builds on every minirevue that packaged sex in an updated burlesque format ever since.

But it also leaves behind the Vegas tradition -- and a herd of scuffling local producers -- by handing artistic control to Pappas, a Las Vegas virgin. "Steve (Wynn, chairman of Mirage Resorts Inc.) was looking for talent outside of Las Vegas ... just to add a different flavor to what we do," Sheldon says. The goal was not to import a Broadway show, but to bring a Broadway aesthetic into a small cabaret setting of about 400 seats.

"He wanted to bring in, I think, part of the vitality and style of a New York production," says Pappas, a Big Apple resident whose credits range from choreography for "Saturday Night Live" to opera productions in New York City. "The humor and variety of dance styles are more in a style associated with a Broadway revue."

Wynn was "hands-on from the very beginning," Pappas says. "I felt a real collaboration." And perhaps a sense of relief -- Mirage executives had axed another almost-finished production called "Eclipse" last March. They went back to the drawing board and hired Pappas in April after the first show "just didn't go where we wanted it to," Sheldon says.

The 70-minute revue is a light confection that plays to the strengths of its cozy setting. The audience can feel the presence of a live band. Singing host Michael Gruber and comedian John Padon are able to make eye contact with the audience, but not at the expense of set pieces such as a giant bed that allows its lingerie-clad women to be "Makin' Whoopee." While tapping the Strip's variety show history, Pappas believes his work "sticks to its theme and doesn't give up halfway through and turn into another show, with jugglers or dog acts."

The title provides a logical chronology, flowing from standards such as "Sooner or Later" to a funk-driven Prince workout. The scenes are connected by voice-overs, and Gruber sets the theatrical tone from the beginning. In the opening number, he sings new lyrics to Cole Porter's "Let's Do It," omitting the usual refrain of "Let's Fall in Love" while working in topical references to the likes of George Michael and Kenneth Starr.

After promising "one history class you won't sleep through," Gruber leads the 15-member cast from an Adam and Eve adagio dance through a '50s medley and a '60s tribute to James Bond, with female singing star Candace Davis covering two themes ("Diamonds are Forever" and "Nobody Does it Better").

Pappas says he was influenced by the Bob Fosse and Michael Bennett era of Broadway. The show is "almost a tribute to all those choreographers," with "sharp, sexy and detailed" dance moves that single out each dancer and avoid chorus lines.

And it's perhaps the most democratic adult-oriented revue ever to hit town. After decades of wives having to endure topless female dancers, equality is here: Only one woman is seen topless in this "History," but it includes a Chippendales-type dance number that strips its male dancers down to G-strings.

Appealing to both sexes is one of the things that Pappas says "makes the show kind of original, but completely heterosexual at the same time."