By Harry Forbes
Apart from the disorienting novelty of “Cats” taking up
residence at the Neil Simon Theatre when, for a record-breaking 7485 performances
over 18 years, it had dominated the block-long marquee of the Winter Garden, nearly
everything about this revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classic musical feels
just right. We’ll get to that exception later.
But classic it is. It’s hard to believe that the original 1981
London production was 35 years ago. It seems, if not quite like “yesterday,” but
certainly not so very long ago when the show was brand new, and
quite the hot ticket. But there's no denying that was a long time ago. Count back an equivalent
number of years before 1981 and it would be 1946. Think “Annie Get Your Gun” or
“St. Louis Woman,” and it will give you some idea of the time differential from the opening of "Cats" to today.
Though towards the end of its Broadway run, “Cats” had
become rather the target of jokes, the show was, it must be remembered, genuinely
innovative at the time. It was an audacious conceit for Lloyd-Webber to take
T.S. Eliot’s poems in “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” and set them to
music for an almost plot-less evening.
But the brilliance of the piece, apart from Lloyd Webber’s uncommonly
rich and varied score (beautifully orchestrated by him and David Cullen), is
the construction of the show with its through lines of Grizabella the Glamour
Cat seeking redemption, the omnipresent threat of the evil Macavity, and the
reassuring presence of Old Deuteronomy who will, by evening’s end, choose which
cat might ascend to the so-called Heaviside Layer.
One admires anew how well the disparate parts of the score are
woven together with the moving strains of “Old Deuteronomy,” the portentous
Grizabella music and the sparkling “Jellicle Cats” motif. The show is dominated
by a series of vaudeville turns, and they are all done here beautifully, with
just enough of a face-lift to made them freshly enjoyable, even as one fondly
recalls the memorable portrayals of Elaine Paige, Brian Blessed, Sarah
Brightman, and Paul Nicholas (in London), and Betty Buckley, Ken Page, and
Terrence Mann (in New York).
Andy Blankenbeuhler’s choreography adheres closely to the
outline of Gillian Lynne’s original, but adds a more contemporary pizzazz. Original
director Trevor Nunn is back and restores the gravitas of the piece that was
missing by the time the show neared the end of its original run.
The cast is very fine, with Christopher Gurr particularly outstanding
an Gus the Theater Cat, maybe the best ever. Quentin Earl Darrington brings a lighter
timbre to Old Deuteronomy than Page or Blessed in the New York and
London originals.
There’s also Tyler Hanes as the Rum Tum Tugger, Jess
LeProtto and Shonica Gooden as Mungojerrie and Rumpeltezer, Jeremy Davis as
Shimbleshanks, Ricky Ubeda as Mistoffelees, and Kim Faure and Chrstine Cornish
Smith as Demeter and Bombalurina, all first-rate. The latter pair sizzle
through a terrific “McCavity,” and the Ubeda’s “Magical Mister Mistoffelees”
was delightfully spirited, with Natasha Katz’s multi-colored lights strung throughout
the house all aglow.
Though the cats run up and down the aisle a few times, this
“Cats” is less an immersive experience than the UK original at the New London
Theatre or Broadway’s Winter Garden. Still, John Napier’s scenic and costume
designs give much the same effect as before.
Of the textual adjustments, the most substantial is the loss
of “Growltiger’s Last Stand,” with its amusing and very sharp Puccini spoof,
which followed the “Gus the Theater Cat” sequence in the Broadway production. It
has been replaced by “The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles,” less
appealing but still enjoyable.
I initially admired the tragic vibe that Leona Lewis brought
to Grizabella, but less so her phrasing and vocalizing when she arrived at the
show’s megahit “Memory” which, in its climactic belting moments, was delivered with
second-rate “American Idol” superficiality.
For all its obvious entertainment value, the show is an
exceedingly well-crafted and sophisticated theater piece with real heart. The
audience at my performance sat rapt throughout until breaking into a warm and
richly-deserved ovation at the end.
(Neil Simon Theatre, 250 W. 52nd St.;
877-250-2929 or Ticketmaster.com)
Photo: Quentin Earl Darrington as Old Deuteronomy and
Company in CATS on Broadway Photo by Matthew Murphy
