I was stuck at home with the a bug yesterday, so I finally watched the musical Cats. It wasn’t bad, and I’d say it was worth the $2.00 I paid for it at Half-Priced Books, but it wasn’t that great, either. I’ve heard raves about it for years and I used to like and be able to play “Memory”, but the show didn’t live up to my expectations. The choreography was good and it looks like it’s very much a dancer’s and choreography buff’s show, but there didn’t seem to be much of a plot and the articulation left a lot to be desired.
Can someone out there tell me why it’s so great? Or do others share my opinion?
Well, IMO, part of the experience is seeing it live; the set design goes out into the audience so you feel like you’re there with the cats.
However, as it’s based on a book of poetry, there really ISN’T that much plot to it. The dancing and music ARE the main part of it.
My dad (raised on things like Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music) took me to see it on Broadway 20 years ago, when I was obsessed with it. Being somewhat tact-challenged, he asked (fairly loudly) at the first intermission, “Is there actually a PLOT to this thing?” I tried to explain it then, but I am now forced to conceed that there is, in fact, not much plot.
The music is still pretty good, although the original poetry is better.
I think it’s dated now. But at the time Cats and Starlight Express were big deals, I think, mainly because there just weren’t as many musicals that were so intensely choreographed. Most musicals have extended breaks of dialogue (unless they are more like rock operas like Jesus Christ Superstar in which there is less choreography anyway) giving the performers a chance to rest more. Cats had really extended ensemble song-and-dance sequences.
For comparisson, think of how Michael Jackson’s Thriller videos with the big choreographed dance numbers hugely impacted the way music videos were produced. MTV went from practically concert footage and low budget stuff, to large scale mini-musicals. Cats was in the similar time period. It broke from the typical Oscar Hammerstein narrative formula, where it’s basically a play wherein everyone suddenly bursts into song once in awhile, to really innovative and hard choreography. It was a very athletically demanding show in comparisson to say, Showboat, and audiences were pumped after watching such energized show. Big spectacle.
There was an article in one of the theatre trade magazines about how nowawdays, choreography is so intense that vocal reinforcement is becoming more and more common (basically becuase the dancing demands are so hard, the performers would huff and puff too much, so sometimes they are practically lip-synching now).
I think Cats is the type of show which doesn’t transition well to a recording. It really should be experienced live, and I’m not so sure that your gripes would diminish all that much seeing it live.
But the music is fun, the lyrics are quirky, and there is something appealing to most cat lovers and many other theatergoers about watching a bunch of people in elaborate make-up pretend to be cats for a couple of hours.
It was the first musical I saw and I loved it.
I saw it many years later and it was rather ruined by the sound. I spent the entire second half very seriously considering punching the sound tech. (I could have, too. He was nice and accessible) The reason? I knew every single word, and I still couldn’t understand what they were saying. I’ve seen many a show in that theatre, so I know it wasn’t acoustics of the building itself, and while perhaps one or two actors might not have been the best enunciators (is that a word?) I doubt the entire cast was stricken with that problem.
It’s really an excellent kids show. I’ve seen it in London, on Broadway several times, and on tour. The simple plot, the dancing and the costumes all appeal to kids quite a lot. Each cat has a well defined character delineated in their song - and that’s it.
One time we wound up in a box, with the dancers just inches away, and they truly were excited by that. By the end, most of the audience was either tourists and/or kids.
It’s not subtle theater, but it was a very good introduction to musicals for children.
I saw it live on stage and wasn’t all that impressed – other than “wow, people dressed as cats,” there wasn’t much to it, and once Grizelda sang “Memories,” the plot was over.
It’s got a better-than-Andrew-Lloyd-Weber-average score, and a couple of good songs, but unless you like bright shiny lights over substance, it’s not that impressive as a musical. Not bad, but not in the musical top 20.
I’ve never seen the whole thing, just a clip of it once, in a theater class I was taking. I found it nauseating. And I don’t mean that metaphorically - for the duration of the clip, I genuinely wanted to vomit. When the clip ended, and we moved on to a different muscial (Oklahoma!, I think) the feeling vanished.
I shudder to think what the effect of seeing the entire show, live, would be.
When I was a tyke I had to recite “Macavity” for an elocution class, and that introduced me to T.S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats”. The poems easily made the transition to song and it was delightful to watch the musical. (Saw it once in London and once in Vancouver.)
It’s a fun show. The songs are hummable, the set, costumes, and dancing spectacular. There’s a story that, when someone told Lloyd Webber half the people in the world hated cats, he said “I’ll settle for the other half coming to see the show.”
This one doesn’t. I found it rather boring. Yeah the costume design is great, but there’s only so long you can watch people roll around on the floor. And ‘Memory’ made me want to hurt someone.
I saw it live on stage in Chicago years ago, and my wife and I liked it enough that it was one of the first DVDs we bought. And yesterday I found out that a friend here has always wanted to see it, so we bought tickets to the show next Sunday. Although she did warn me that we need to bring a handful of tissues for “Memory”.