Cats
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics by T.S. Eliot
Performance Date: February 26, 2019
Okay, let’s just get the obvious out of the way: Cats is trash. 100% trash. Spectacle and gimmicks and an extreme lack of substance abound throughout its two hours, and its limited plot is flimsy, at best.
25 years after seeing the show live…it was time to relive it!!
And I love it to pieces.
I am CLEARLY extremely excited…Chuck? Not so much.
Call me sentimental, but Cats has always been special to me. It was one of the first shows I ever listened to, and I believe it was the second professional show I saw live (after taking in two performances of Phantom of the Opera; I was five when I first saw Phantom, and I would have been around eight or nine when I saw Cats). Yes, tastes have changed in the last 30+ years since it opened, but you never forget your firsts, and Cats was one of those, for me.
I want to address the common criticism that Cats has no plot. It does. It’s weak, yes, and doesn’t stand up to a lot of scrutiny, but it DOES have one. Let me explain: in this world, we have breeds of cats (tabbies being my favorite, thank you for asking). In the world of Cats, all those different breeds are ALSO part of a sort of super-breed, known as Jellicle Cats. Every year, the cats get together for the Jellicle Ball, where one cat is selected by their leader, Old Deuteronomy, to go to cat heaven (known as the Heavyside Layer), and get reborn into a bonus, 10th life. So, essentially, the show is the different cats “auditioning” for who will get the extra life. Got it? Good. Moving on.
As the show has been around a long time, there isn’t much more to say about the material of the show, so I instead want to focus on the actual performance I saw. As always, the cast was amazing at their choreography, and it’s an example of something the filmed version from 1998 gets wrong. Yes, it gives closeups to help tell its story, but it sacrifices the big picture of the stage, where Cats really shines. The members of the tribe are all over the set and in the audience...there are little surprises tucked away throughout the show. Seeing the show live gives a better perspective on the overall action, and it lends itself to a nice repeatability...you could watch the show a few times and catch different things each time.
The cast of the national tour revival of Cats
Our performers, in addition to their choreography, were pretty great. Our Mistoffelees, Tion Gaston, was a great dancer (although his vocals were just so/so). Keri René Fuller, as Grizabella, had some great vocals, particularly that main note in “Memory”. The rest of the cast each did great, with no major standouts (although Chuck liked Ethan Saviet as Skimbleshanks). One interesting direction was to have Old Deuteronomy, played by Brandon Michael Nase, sit on stage for the entirety of the 20 minute intermission. He was definitely a selfie-getter from the audience. Me, I’d just be hungry.
The cast of the national tour revival of Cats
The rest of the show is virtually identical to what played on Broadway and around the world: there’s some minor choreography changes, and the removal of the “Growltiger” sequence (and its racist lines), and moving the “Pekes and Pollicles” sequence (and its racist lines) to take its place. I guess “Growltiger” is worse? There is something lost by having Gus play the Rumpus Cat instead of Growltiger, but it’s difficult to define. Also that new Rumpus Cat costume looked awful.
Overall, Cats, now and forever (to borrow its former tagline), will always have a special place in my heart. Is it any good? Eh, parts of it. Does it feel dated? Oh yes, 100%. Am I opposed to seeing it again live should the opportunity present itself? Not at all. It’s two hours of fun, innocent enjoyment. It’s the hip new thing to not like it, and there are definitely people who don’t “get it”, but try as I might, I can’t help but love this stupid little show.
FINAL GRADE: B+
