Like the part when it’s over and you can leave.
I went to see it in Southampton a couple of years ago during a comeback tour (still going: http://www.catstour.co.uk/) - I loved it, just for the sheer spectacle - the choreography was far more intense and impressive than stage musical DVD (which I have at home).
We were up in the circle, so didn’t really get the benefit of the audience interaction that happens down in the front of the stalls, but even so, I liked it a lot - it’s a colourful, funny, energetic musical. It’s best not to concentrate too hard on the story, as that’s really rather trite - what there is of it.
I liked it for some of the same reasons I like the Blue Man Group - not because it makes sense, but because it works really well as a piece of entertainment.
For the record, ‘Memories’ is my least favourite part of the show.
It’s MEMORY dammitt!
I found it got dated very quickly.
Cats debuted in 1980 or 1981. The costumes and choreography made it incredibly innovative, most of the songs had grat pop music hooks, and it had the added bonus of an opera within a show, Growltiger’s Last Stand, with its nod to Puccini. I became sort of a theatrical version of a blockbuster with a wide cross-over appeal for theatre and dance. Plus, it was riding the same pop culture wave that gave us the movies Fame, Flashdance, and a successful film adaptation of A Chorus Line in 1985. (Chorus Line and Cats each hed the title of “longest running musical” at some point, I think the current holder of that title is Les Miz.)
Cats was at its coolest during the 1980s schmaltz-fest that let cute people run around in tights and leg warmers. Just look at the way the cat “ears” look like Duran Duran hair! 
But Phantom hit the stage in '85 or '86 with then-unrivalled stage effects, and that set an all-new benchmark for theatre spectacle. And weighy-themed shows like Les Miz and Miss Saigon had all the blockbuster spectacle, but with more sophisticated stories. So, IMHO, 1990 audiences and later expect more, than what Cats has to offer.
I first saw it mid-80s and though “Oh, wow!”, seeing it more recently I thought, “Gee, that was a bit silly.” But live (up close) leaves you feeling really pumped because the physical demands of teh performance is awe-inspring.
That’s actually a pretty good comparisson.
Fair enough. I wasn’t really paying attention to that song.
It wasn’t the sound tech, it was the dumbass show. My mother and sister saw it in Chicago and loved it so much they went out and bought the soundtrack. My mother was so into it that I had to listen to it in the car every time we went somewhere. Then it finally came to St. Louis, where we lived, and she was so excited to get to bring me to see it that she bought me a set of the tapes, instructing me to listen to them over and over until I had all the songs memorized, or at least a good recollection of them, because I wouldn’t be able to understand a single word in the stage version if I didn’t.
What? The? Fuck?
And guess what? She was absolutely right. I knew every word to every song by heart and still didn’t understand a single thing they sang the entire show. Figuring maybe it was the venue; afterall, it was intended to be played in a small, intimate theater, I decided to give it another try when I went to New York a couple of years later. Still didn’t understand a word and still hated it every bit as much, even though I could sing the entire score, myself.
So why in Og’s name would anyone turn it into a musical in the first place?!
Full disclosure: I do hate Cats, but I hate cats even more.
I think the music is better than people are giving it credit for.
Memory is a truly beautiful song. It may be cliched and overexposed now, but that’s because it’s beautiful.
Aside from that, I would rate the songs as follows:
Wonderful:
The Ballad of Billy McCaw (only in the London version)
Very good:
Skimbleshanks
Growltiger’s Last Stand
Good:
Jellice songs for Jellice Cats
Old Deuteronomy
Magical Mr. Mistoffelees
Decent:
Rum Tum Tugger
Gus
Macavity
Journey to the Heaviside Layer
The Ad-Dressing of Cats
Grizabella the Glamour Cat
Forgettable:
The Naming of Cats
Old Gumbie Cat
Bustopher Jones
Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser
Tedious:
The Moments of Happiness
Oh, and those of you dissing Les Miz, I have a question for you: What is it like to have no soul?
I saw the touring production last spring. I’d been meaning to go to one of the touring Broadway musicals for a while, and it was the first one that matched my schedule.
My first impression is that neither Weber, nor the director or choreographer of the show, had ever lived in the same house as a cat. T. S. Eliott clearly did, and his poems are all clearly understandable by others who know cats, but the people behind the musical managed to suck out all of the inherent felinity, and replaced it with polyester cotton candy Broadway spectacle. When Eliott said “The Rum-tum-tugger is a terrible boor. Whenever he’s in, he wants to be out. He’s always on the wrong side of every door”, I knew exactly what he meant, since I’ve known many cats like that. What he meant was emphatically not an Elvis-clone rock god. And the Magical Mister Mistoffoles… It kind of misses the point to portray him as male, does it not? Male cats don’t magically produce litters of kittens. And don’t even get me started on the choreography… Cats dancing? Sure. But 30 cats together, all doing exactly the same moves, all in synch? Uh, no, cats don’t work that way.
I’ve a hunch that Weber didn’t want to do a show about cats, to begin with. It looks to me like he was much more attracted to Eliott’s much darker earlier work (where “Memory” and a couple of other songs came from), but he knew that audiences wouldn’t accept a musical that dark, so he mixed them in with the cat stuff to sell it.
Ugh, tell me about it. I tried to teach Lenny and Squiggy how to do the two-step and they got in a slap fight before we got into the third bar of music!
I’ve seen it way too many times, including on the road, and I’ve never had a problem hearing the lyrics. They were as clear or clearer than the lyrics to most musicals I’ve seen. Much more than Phantom.
I’ve seen Cats twice live and watched a few clips of video. Let me just say that videos of Cats do no justice to it live. It’s an awesome experience when the cats come out into the audience and interact. I was in the second row the second time I saw it, and Alonzo was walking on the backs of the chairs and he crawled over us. A few other cats were hanging out in the row in front of us and high fived a few little kids. Rum Tum Tugger danced with an audience member for a second during his song.
If you look at the makeup and costumes of all of the cats, it’s beautiful. The colors and costumes might make it appealing to younger kids, as some of you said, but I think it’s appealing to an older audience as well. It’s a 2 and a half hour show, and that’s a long time for young kids to be sitting silently.
The characters are easy to fall in love with. Rum Tum Tugger is amusing with his rock-star-like dancing. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser are cute and funny. I think that, although it’s not insanely difficult choreography, the dancing and moved at the show I was at was pretty cool. I give them props for being able to still sing beautifully and do the things they were doing at the same time.
In my opinion, the songs are fun and catchy. Ones like Memory (yes, MemorY, not MemorIES)are not easily forgotten. I had no trouble understanding them.
Overall, I loved it, and I would see it again. I think it all comes down to that musicals are not for everybody. It’s a very particular audience. I know people who love musicals (I’m one of them), and I know people who would do anything to not have to sit through one. I loved the entire Cats experience, and I recommend to everybody to at least see it live once.