THEATRE PREVIEW

JUNE 2024 | Volume 240

 

For better or worse, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s CATS kicked off the mega-musical phenomenon in 1982. It subsequently ran for 18 years on Broadway and 21 years in London’s West End, one of the all-time most popular and successful shows in the history of musical theatre.

It’s an odd show: fully sung (no spoken dialogue), no plot to speak of—only a sort-of-plot, too vague, hazy and complicated to follow. Few distinctive characters, and little in the way of fully developed relationships between or among them. No love story, no revenge story. Almost nothing that you would expect from musical theatre other than the music, singing and dancing. And the songs, with only a couple of exceptions, are eminently forgettable.

If you look at the credits, you find no “book”: no one has written the story or libretto. The material on which Webber drew was a book of poetry by T.S. Eliot. About cats. The song lyrics are pretty much Eliot’s poems verbatim. The cat characters come directly from the poems.

So what’s the appeal of singing, dancing cats? It’s the oddity of the concept and the skill of the dancers, choreographer and designers primarily, along with Webber’s music and the musical director’s construction of the vocals.

It’s also a perfect show for Theatre Under the Stars, which always features large casts of energetic, enthusiastic, skilled young dancers with a couple of Equity actors as anchors. These cats do a sterling job with all the features you’d want in this show here in abundance. Kudos to director Ashley Wright, music director Sean Bayntun and his ten-piece orchestra, and especially choreographer Julie Murphy, because at its heart CATS is dance theatre. Donnie Tejani’s exotic costumes are another key element along with John Webber’s dramatic lighting on Jennifer Stewart’sback alley set of old boxes and dumpsters.

The singing is fine, highlighted by Sarah Lane as Grizabella the Glamour Cat with the show’s best-known song, “Memory,” and the basso vocals of Isaac Aaron Johnson as Bustopher Jones and Gus. But I found the choral numbers most satisfying. Despite its many star turns, CATS is really an ensemble show. And the ensemble shines.

Among the individual standout dancers, I loved Tia Gunhold’s solo ballerina, Victoria; the tap numbers led by Hailey Fowler’s Jennyandots and Holly Collis Handford’s Skimbleshanks; Colton Bamber’s swivel-hipped Rum Tum Tugger; the acrobatic duo of Rumpleteazer (Jenna Lamb) and Mungojerrie (Haley Allen); October Penningroth’s magical Mister Mistoffelees; and Jaren Guerreiro’s dynamic bad boy Macavity. But as with the songs, the full impact of the dances results from the engagement of the entire 26-member ensemble.

Playing alongside the excellent School of Rock, CATS makes this summer’s edition of Theatre Under the Stars one of the most satisfying in its recent history. Give yourself a treat while the weather is good and see both these shows.

 

 

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