Of course, if you wanted a production where the performers accurately depicted cat behavior, half of them would spend the entire show hiding under the furniture.
And then there’s the obligatory “hairball” scene…
That’s obviously not what I meant. I meant it has appeal to a wide range of audiences that would normally not like snooty, high brow musicals/operas/plays.
Oh, yes, I knew that. I’m not a huge fan of T.S. Elliot, but I have not read his cat poems.
Huh, is that true? Neat. I had no idea.
I’m finishing the musical now. I’m 1 hour and 16 minutes in and I have to admit, there is a charm to it. The people are quite talented and it is a pretty good production.
I think I was under the impression it was a regular musical with a clear narrative story, a normal plot. I am realizing it is mainly songs about different kinds of cats. I guess that’s cool. I do think my daughter would squee watching this. I may show her.
It’s just a showcase for the songs of Eliot set to music. There is a slight plot, but mostly it’s spectacle and flash.
As a side note, T.S. Eliot was not just a poet, but an accomplished playwright. He’d probably be noplused to discover his most successful theatrical work was from a book of poems he wrote almost as a throwaway.
Yes. It was an overheard phrase by an old woman saying “dear little cats” to some strays.
Saw it in Louisville and Terre Haute. Loved it both times.
I’d argue that the paper thin “plot” is that all the cats come together one night a year at the Jellicle Ball and tell their stories to Old Deuteronomy (the priest-king of the cats). When they’re all done, Old Deut. picks one (apparently the saddest) to go to the “Heaviside Layer” (either kitty heaven or a section of the atmosphere right below the troposphere.
And the amount of time it took to write the previous paragraph is probably 10 times longer than the amount of attention that the show pays to the “plot”
I enjoyed the spectacle and much of the music and dancing, but it doesn’t hold up to any sort of thought.
A trusted friend who’d seen it about 25 years ago said “Cats sucked.” Good enough for me.
It is whimsy. As Dr. Sheldon Cooper said: “What’s life without whimsy?”
And the music is very good.
That’s true of many of the most popular musicals, though. People don’t go for the plot, they go for the music. Phantom of the Opera is a cheesy melodrama, Mama Mia has a plot concocted to string together Abba hits, A Chorus Line has virtually no plot, and The Lion King is based on a cartoon (although maybe Hamlet too;)).
While an interesting plot can enhance a musical (Les Miserables, Rent) it’s hardly a requisite for an entertaining musical. Musicals in general are not high-brow entertainment.
THANK YOU, Thank You, thank you!
This episode of SNL, and this particular skit/sketch, was one of the first bonding moments with my gf/now-wife back in 1986/87 and I’ve been looking for it ever since. The line “It was much better than ‘Cats’, I will see it again and again” is still a touchphrase with us, one we have to explain whenever we let loose with the quote in polite(r) company.
Again, thanks for the link!
Must be “Grizabella: the Glamour Cat” - considered “too sad for children” and left out of Old Possum’s Book, like you said.
My sister, mother, and I went to see it a few years ago, in between my sister’s birthday in January and mine in February. It was kind of a last-minute thing and we ended up in the balcony, but it was extraordinary. Unfortunately, this was before Mom got her cataracts out, so she wasn’t able to enjoy it as much as my sister and I.
I will be seeing it next month.
My main Cats reference is David Letterman occasionally singing “Midnight, and the kitties are sleeping…” on Late Night with David Letterman.
mmm
Sure, you can make a good spectacle without any plot, but why not have both? Compare, say, Les Miserables. The original book by Victor Hugo is great, yes, in that he really makes you feel what the characters are feeling, and live the story they’re living, but yes, it’s a lot of work. One might thus reasonably criticize it for being too “highbrow”. But the musical, by making the music work with the story, makes all of that more accessible. You don’t need to go to a lot of work to reach Victor Hugo’s masterpiece. Even if you go in not hoping or expecting to get the meat of the work and just want to appreciate the music (which is also great on its own merits), a lot of it will stick anyway.
By contrast, T. S. Eliot can certainly be inaccessible at times, but Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats is not at all: Anyone who’s had cats will recognize at least some of the characters. And Weber, when he turned it into a musical, made it less accessible. Yeah, there’s spectacle, but that’s all there is. And even just by that narrow measure, there are plenty of Broadway shows with more spectacle, while still being more substantial (even several by Weber himself).