CATS Revival Review!!
AHHHH so it’s our second day in New York City and this evening, on top of visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and the 9/11 Memorial, Mom and I got tickets to go see the revival of CATS! This is a super awesome dance fest production with some fantastic people! Mom and I got to the Neil Simon Theater on 52nd around 6:15. There was already a line to get into the theater, so we waited there for about fifteen minutes and then we all formed two lines and started going in. We sat in the mezzanine, in the front row of the second section. They were great seats, and our two ushers, John and Joanne, kept us talking about the show while expertly moving hordes of people around. I was in the aisle, and on the other side of Mom was a German couple who weren’t exactly interested in adults dressing up as cats leaping around a stage. Another two young ladies sat behind them, and asked Mom and I if we would mind switching seats with each other as the lady who was sitting behind Mom was short. Before I just said, “Um...nope, I’m sitting on the aisle because I know for a fact there’ll be cats up here,” Joanne, our wonderful superhero of an usher, swooped in and said, “No, they’re not allowed to switch,” very matter-of-factly. Directly behind us were a British couple - at least, I’m assuming they were British from the woman’s accent, which we got to hear a lot of, because this woman insisted on SINGING through many of the songs. Numerous times during the show, Mom or I would turn our heads and kind of give her the preschool-teacher-no-no look, but she was scarily incorrigible. She also complained about her shoes and eventually took them off, leaving her smelly panty-hosed foot right next to me, where it kicked me eventually, after Mom asked her to be quiet during Misto’s song. She kept getting angrier and angrier as the show went on, and kept talking, saying to her husband, “I’mma take these two down, look at ‘em, sneerin’ at me. No, I shan’t relax! I’m enjoyin’ it, I’m enjoyin it!” Finally, I ended up grabbing an usher and reporting the woman, near the end of the show, and the last we saw of her, a man in a suit we assumed was her husband was physically restraining her at the top of the stairs while we ran out of the theater towards the stage door. But the ushers were amazing, and the stagehands were nice, and I got to talking with the fella at the concessions stand about life in New York, and generally, the people were wonderful. The show itself started about four minutes late, but what’s four minutes to a three-hour show? The overture began and people listened listlessly for a moment, but then the electric cat eyes around the stage started blinking and turning on. I got excited, because the cat eyes! And then, the cats were on the stage, and in the orchestra and mezzanine levels, wearing huge electric light up eyes on top of their wigs! The set was like a huge garbage-y overgrowth, like ivy that takes over an old building. There were three sets of stairs connecting the stage and the orchestra, and then from the stage to the mezzanine, ladders and literal catwalks. These were used, but not enough that you started to take them for granted. Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats was FANTASTIC. There was energy everywhere. Tails were flying and legs were kicking. I was naming the cats as they came on, and honestly I was surprised at how many I remembered. Victoria was an absolute angel; whenever she danced, your eyes were just automatically drawn to her. The shoe was dropped center stage and everyone looked affronted. They had the trapeze, as well, but if I’m not mistaken, I think it was Misto who swung on it? Whoever it was did a phenomenal job, tho! ELOISE KROPP THOUGH OH MY GOODNESS. She is a literal tap dancing goddess. I read a Playbill article about her today, and was super impressed with her on paper, and she lived up to the hype! The cockroach and mouse costumes were adorable and everyone’s harmonies were on POINT. Also they played with really big exercise balls painted like soccer and basket balls and it was adorable. During Tugger’s song, they used strobe lights and a disco ball to up the ante, and it was sorta like a rave? Also he wore CHEETAH-PRINT COWBOY BOOTS Y’ALL. And when he told Bombalurina no, he didn’t say it like “Nah, you’re boring,” he said it more like, “I’m flirting with you no”, which I thought kind of translated well with his and Bomba’s storyline. In general, I noticed a lot more dance breaks, which I LOVED, because all of these actors are insanely talented!! Grizabella entered through the orchestra, and almost immediately, all of the cats started hissing. I really liked that, versus in the movie, where they only express their disgust with their bodies and faces. Hearing that disgust just drove in Grizabella’s loneliness. Because Leona Lewis is so much younger than your average Grizabella (she’s 25), she had to perfect a limp and some sort of a hunch. Her walk and stance seemed really good to me. I wasn’t too impressed with her singing at first. Bomba was super protective of Demeter in all of the songs. Kim Faure and Christine Smith really portrayed the sisters act well together. Bustopher was almost insanely happy, but for the first time, I began to understand the contrast between Bustopher and Gus, and Grizabella. Bustopher is an obesely overweight cat whose only activity is eating. Gus is still living in his glory days. And these two old cats who are just as useless as Grizabella are accepted and even honored by the Jellicle Tribe. Is it a gender thing? Anyway, carrying on. Mungo and Rumple were really adorable and cute! These two were most definitely dancers over singers, but they had so much energy and chemistry that I was engaged the whole time. Their bags had “SWAG” written on them. It was cute. Coricopat and Tantomile were also SO FREAKIN IN SYNC I almost died. Old Deuteronomy showed up through the audience, and everyone was so happy to see him! Tugger did his “and more, I am tempted to say, ninety-nine!” but he did “ninety-nine” as kind of a whispered aside, so it was like whispering something inappropriate in church. He was immediately hushed by Munkustrap, but when Tugger joined him in a sort of apologetic tone, Munkustrap threw his arm around his shoulder and they sang happily together. And Old Deuteronomy came out and had an absolutely magnificent voice. I was surprised when they apparently skipped over Pekes and Pollicles. When they were joined by Grizabella again, all the cats hissed at her and then fled. She tried to dance, failed, and the lights went up. During the intermission, Old Deuteronomy stayed on the stage, and, thanks to the kindness of Joanne, our usher, I sprinted out of my seat and whirled down the stairs to the orchestra section. I GOT TO STAND ON A BROADWAY STAGE Y’ALL. Then other peasants noticed and the stage quickly filled up with people who were determined to have their picture with Old Deuteronomy. I asked a young mom if she’d take a picture of me with my phone, but she didn’t do a spectacular job. Oh well. Anyway, I went back to my seat and the show started again. I had mentioned at the beginning of the show to our usher John that I thought it would be a super neat twist on the traditional opening to have the cats just kind of meander onstage, like in Spring Awakening. He started to say something, then stopped himself, smiled and said, “You’ll see,” and that’s how they started the second act! Moments of Happiness was just distressingly beautiful, and Sillabub had the purest, clearest enchanting voice. Then Gus came on, and, because Pekes and the Pollicles had been apparently skipped in the first act, I got WAY too excited and started thinking that we were going to get to see Growltiger! Dancing cats AND a pirate ship?? But instead, they transitioned into Pekes from Gus’s song. I’m really glad that I got to see Pekes, but it still would have been super cool to see Growltiger’s Last Stand! SKIMBLESHANKS OH MY GOLLY GOODNESS. The energy, the fluidity! Of course it was super weird to hear the American accent rather than the Scottish one on the movie, but that was just something my ears had to get used to, haha. The entire time, Tugger was still just standing around moping in the corner because GEEZ the song isn’t about HIM. Something I did love about Tugger’s character here was that whenever Macavity was mentioned/showed up, he would become super protective of anyone around him. It was really adorable and gave his character a little more depth. Macavity was like death metal personified. He wore tight black leather with buckles and studs and spikes, and his minions had mohawks. I mentioned earlier that Kay Faure and Christine Smith were perfect as Demeter and Bombalurina, and hearing them sing Macavity just solidified that. Their voices are SO AMAZING. SING IT GURL. I noticed that most of the kittens weren’t in the dance number, tho. It seemed to just be Demeter, Bomba, Cassandra, Coricopat, Jellylorum, and Jennyanydots. I could be mistaken, tho, since I was quite a ways from the stage. RICKY UBEDA AS MISTO GIVES ME LIFE. Unfortunately, I was distracted for about the first couple of minutes because of the rude woman singing really loudly behind us. Like, seriously, I paid a hundred bucks for this seat and to hear these professionals sing. Shut the frick-frack-snickity-snack up or I will throw you over the balcony and into the orchestra pit before you can say “the Magical Mr. Mistoffelees”. But the lights! And he came down from the ceiling, and his coat was all sparkly, and he booped Cassandra, and HER coat got all sparkly too!! Then all of these twinkle lights that were draped across the theater started blinking, and we the audience were just enthralled! About halfway through the song, tho, all of these blue and white lights turned to rainbow, including Misto’s coat. Rainbow, y’all. I died. Then all of the cats gathered around the stage and POOF Old Deuteronomy was back with the cats again! And Ricky stood back and took a couple bows and poofed some more sparkles and was just generally cute and magical. After they seated Old Deuteronomy and surrounded him by like eleven cats, Grizabella came on again, and when she did, I started thinking, “Hmm, maybe in this production, Grizabella, Munkustrap, and Tugger are siblings??” because in generally accepted canon, when Griz is older, she’s thought of as their mother. But the connection I was sensing between the characters was that of siblings. But again, I could be totally wrong. I’d heard one snippet of Leona Lewis’ voice, and frankly, I hadn’t been impressed at all. It was a little too popstar-ish for me. But HO-LY COW, when the woman wants to belt an E flat, she’ll KNOCK YOUR FRIGGIN SOCKS OFF. Chills, up and down my body. Her voice created a vacuum that the entire audience leaned into. Grizabella’s soul was bared for all of the cats to see and hear, and she was relying solely on the grace of Old Deuteronomy to give her a new life. I was just a tiny bit disappointed that this production decided to kick out the “Cat Paw Descending From the Heavens” stairway, but the tire lifted Old Deuteronomy and Grizabella into the air, about halfway up, and then Grizabella started floating on wires, up to the catwalk above the curtain, away from our view. It was ethereal, and not quite as gaudy as the Cat Paw. The curtain call was a little avant-garde, as they all had separate bows (yay!!) but in no particular order. Then they all joined together and started dancing offstage, but at this point, the rude woman behind us was giving us such a miserable time that we just booked it out of the theater and asked for security. But we made it to the stage door safely, and I casually curse that woman to always be perpetually late. The stage door was a lot of fun! Ricky was the first one out, and he was super nice and I wanted to ask him about the rainbow lights but of course, when in the presence of someone you’re overwhelmingly in awe of, everything just falls out of your mind and you’re stuck standing there repeating “Good show!!” Tyler Hanes was really incredible. He stood and talked with us for a moment, took a picture, and was just really sweet. He was also wearing a tiny fedora, which was kind of adorable. Eloise Kropp came out, and Jeremy Davis, and also Corey Snide, and Ahmad Simmons. They were all, understandably, very tired, but they signed our Playbills and took pictures! There was a really loud happy group of Australians at one end of the bars, and I just loved hearing them ask the actors questions, because my mind was so excited that I couldn’t string two words together if it was a matter of life and death. After a little bit, the stagehand at the door went and checked to see if there was anyone else coming out, and then told us that was it. I made sure to thank him, because he’d been standing there longer than any of us, and I really appreciated that! Mom and I walked down towards our apartment and ate cookies and milk when we got back. But that night, in a word, was purr-fect.