Cats Is Sheer Lunacy — And I Like It That Way

In July, the internet lost its collective mind when the trailer for Tom Hopper’s film adaptation of Cats hit YouTube. Yes, that Cats — the fourth-longest-running musical on Broadway, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s totally unnecessary fever dream adapted from T.S. Eliot’s even less necessary book of poetry, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. But sometimes the superfluous is exactly what we need. And what better way to get primed to see Taylor Swift and Idris Elba as Cats cats than to witness the touring production of the Broadway play in all its glory at TPAC, where it will light up the stage through Nov. 24?

This almost completely plotless masterpiece is set in a London junkyard, where a nuisance of Jellicle cats comes together at the Jellicle Ball to decide who among them will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and be reborn. That’s literally the entire plot of this 135-minute musical. 

The opening songs are a ton of fun. The choreography has been refreshed by Andy Blankenbuehler, straight off of his Hamilton success, but it feels just the same as it did 30 years ago when my elementary school group ventured to the Winter Garden Theatre. The Jellicles are graceful and quick. They jump super high and spin super fast. And then they go down to ground level to stretch and curl around each other. All the things you expect to be exceptional are exceptional: The junkyard set of tires, appliances, broken windows and tennis rackets is charming and functional. The lighting design is fantastic, the sound superior.

But you don’t go to Cats for the lighting or the sound, and certainly not for the plot. You go for the cats! After the Jellicles sing nonsensically for a while, we get to the solos, when each cat must make his or her case for rebirth. Jennyanydots is cute and can tap dance, but she shuffles offstage to make way for Rum Tum Tugger. 

Guys. 

What if I told you that Rum Tum Tugger brought on the sexual awakening of a generation of New York and Near-York kids? Clad in forest-green Lycra and a chain-link belt, Tug is a perpetually unsatisfied cat. If you let him in the house, he cries to be let out. If you put him out, he wants back in. Artful and knowing — and very, very crude — Tug doesn’t care for a cuddle. And the best part about Rum Tum Tugger is that he does not give a fuck. Actor McGee Maddox hams it up with plenty of Tugger-esque hip-grinding and tongue-wagging. Why is the Tug so sexy? It is never explained. But there’s no doing anything about it. 

Cats is at its best when it recognizes — and owns — its absurdity. Even the most ardent Cats supporter is not immune to its flaws. Another alpha cat is Munkustrap, played by a somewhat cloying Dan Hoy. Munkustrap doesn’t have his own song. We don’t know of his particular talents or abilities. He seems somewhat popular among the other cats for no apparent reason. Munkustrap is a perpetual sidekick, always there just off-center of the action. Munkustrap doesn’t get any recognition, and you know what? I don’t think he deserves any! Cats is great when it feels like a parody of musical theater, but someone didn't let poor Munkustrap in on the joke, and Hoy is as earnest as a teacher's pet. 

Then there’s old-as-fuck Deuteronomy, the guest of honor at the ball, and the young Jellicles crawl around the stage at his feet. Who knows why? I guess they want to be reborn into new lives for some reason that is never articulated. Old Deut is a drag. He’s been around since Queen Victoria, and he’s not even trying to catch up with the trends. His song is so boring that Tug, sensing the cloud of tedium that has descended upon the junkyard, gamely tries to stir things up. It doesn’t work. Everything Old Deut says is delivered with gravitas — but it’s incomprehensible. The lyrics do not rhyme, but he sings them anyway, sounding like a Catholic priest at mass. It’s awkward and operatic, and it shows Webber at his worst: trying to bring too many musical traditions into one show, instead of sticking with what goes together. Actor Brandon Michael Nase is fine, I guess, but he doesn’t have a lot to do, and I was not stirred to respect the Deut like the Jellicles do. 

This brings me to my Big Question: What criteria does Deuteronomy use when he decides who will ascending to the Heaviside Layer? Must a cat be sufficiently old? Accomplished? Talented? Why are all of these young, virile cats trying to get to the next life, when their current lives seem, well, pretty fucking great? We don’t ever find out what old Deut is looking for, but the rest of the Jellicles seem to trust him. And what happens to a cat who does not ascend but eventually dies, say, in a street fight or of old age? No new life for that cat? I can live without these answers, but Deuteronomy's inscrutable nature leaves me feeling vexed.

Grizabella enters Act I looking like The Crow — hunched over with limp black hair and over-the-top makeup to show us how rough life gets for a glamour cat past her prime. Grizabella is tired of your excuses. She belongs indoors, living out her golden years on a sofa, eating an expensive prescription diet to keep her alive for a few extra months, a litter box never far away. But she lives on the streets and must fend for herself. She cowers painfully in her gray coat, joints aching in the (I imagine) cold, damp London night. She remembers her youth and makes to dance — but she’s racked by the pain of old age. To make matters worse, she’s ostracized. The other cats hiss and swipe their paws at her, but she staggers to center stage anyway, and the rest retreat. Here we get Grizzy’s first solo — “Memory” (not "Memories")  — and Old Deuteronomy takes notice. "Memory" is the best song in Cats — more on it later — and Grizabella is here to say, "I know this whole thing has been ridiculous. But hang in there and we'll get to something serious. Promise. Rawr." 

Look. Lots of people hate Cats. My husband is one of them. When he saw Cats with his father in Vegas Paducah, Ky., once upon a time, they left before it was over. Horrors! Here's my theory: When people say they hate Cats, they’re not talking about old Grizabella or humpty Rum Tum Tugger or the excellent dancers in the company. They’re remembering Asparagus the Theatre Cat. This whiny feline wanders around the stage wearing what looks like several afghans sewn together until his big moment in the spotlight when Jellylorum tells us his story. Yawn, Gus was once a great actor. Now he's so old he suffers from palsy, which makes his paws shake. He’s possibly even older than Grizabella, but unlike Grizabella, he’s super boring. After a way-too-long intro with very little dancing, yawn, he reminisces about that time he was in a play. Sounds fun, right? No. Of course it isn’t. 

In the original Cats, this is when old Gus would play the part of Growltiger, a pirate cat who took no prisoners and “scowled upon a hostile world from one forbidding eye.” I liked Growltiger. He was dark. Other cats were afraid of him. As Growltiger, Gus got to be virile and powerful again, and it made his role worth it. But the new Cats cuts Growltiger, and Gus sings “The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles.” Yeah, that’s how it’s spelled. And I have no fucking idea what it’s about because I was so bored. 

If you think Rum Tum Tugger would lower himself to join this dirge, you’re crazy. Tug remains supremely unbothered throughout most of Cats. He perches on the sidelines, basking in his sex appeal, only deigning to jump down from his perch now and then to participate in the ball or flirt with Demeter or Cassandra or whomever — honestly, they all blend together. Unlike poor Munkustrap, Tug isn’t interested in dueling with Macavity the Mystery Cat — the “bafflement of Scotland Yard” — for Bad Boy status. He’s got pussy to chase. That is, until late in Act II when he inexplicably starts stanning Magical Mister Mistoffelees, the “original Conjuring Cat.” 

PJ DiGaetano is a glorious Mistoffelees — elegant as all get-out and technically the best dancer onstage. As is typical of Mistoffelees, his fouettés go on for days, but DiGaetano’s a little tight in the shoulders and could take a lesson from his loosey-goosey bro Rum Tum Tugger. (Couldn’t we all?) If you’re still reading this, you probably care that the new production traded Mistoffelees’ flame-throwing capabilities for a snazzy light-up jacket. It looks great. But since I know that Mistoffelees is capable of creating fire in his paw, I wasn’t impressed by his less-flammable tricks — but I was by his fouettés. 

It’s getting late, and I’m as old as Cats (we were both born in 1981). I’ll fast-forward to the big moment, when Grizzy comes back looking just as haggard, and she shows the Jellicles what she’s got. Here’s where I get serious, because actor Keri René Fuller’s second go at “Memory” flattened me. Grizabella knows what it feels like to be loved, and that's what makes her isolation so painful. At the end of each day, she watches the streetlights go on, and she waits for another day she must weather.

Grizabella is a survivor. What has she survived? Look, it doesn't matter. Who hasn't felt like Grizabella? Who among us has not seen the dawn and thought, "Here we fucking go again." I am as old as Cats, which is not very old, and I get Grizabella. She refuses to parade around to get the attention of Old Deuteronomy. She can't leap or fouetté or pirouette. She can barely stand up straight. This is what she's got, and she's going to give it every last bit of heart she has in her. 

“Touch me!” she belts. “It’s so easy to leave me / all alone with the memory / of my days in the sun.” 

It was wrenching. Fuller’s voice made the entire rest of the play — the good parts and the bad — recede, and Grizabella was the only one I cared about. People stood up and clapped before the song was over. I cried. 

And that’s the reason I love Cats. Parts of it are sheer lunacy. But other parts feel true and necessary and life-giving. Of course Deuteronomy chose Grizabella to be reborn, and she ascends into the sky by way of a floating tire.

It's poetry. It's nonsense. It's Cats.