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I loved Cats

Posted by: DistantDrumming 05:23 pm EST 11/23/14
In reply to: CATS - Why? - MarkBearSF 04:24 pm EST 11/23/14

and I'm not apologizing for it either. I'm not referring to this taped production, but to the night in the theatre I had many years ago. Look, I'm not a dummy, if Sondheim, ALW and I were on a sinking boat and I could only save one, I'd save Sondheim. In fact, Cats is really the only ALW show I genuinely like. I think there are many pretty melodies in much of his other work, but he nearly always works with lyricists and librettist who simply don't know how to build character or dramatic tension or, frankly, tell a compelling story. But, Cats was always free of that constraint. It didn't have the self-importance of Evita, Superstar or Phantom. It just embraced what it was - an evening of song and dance about a bunch of cats. Do I think it's a great dramatic work? No, of course not. But was I transported by the song and dance? Was it full of theatrical imagination - even if it was just on the surface and - and didn't, not even in "Memory", shine a light on an inner truth or reveal something new? Yeah, I had a damn good time.


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re: I loved Cats

Posted by: Shutterbug 06:19 pm EST 11/23/14
In reply to: I loved Cats - DistantDrumming 05:23 pm EST 11/23/14

Good for you, DD. I coming out as someone who loved CATS, too. Of course, I saw it 30 years ago as an impressionable teen ager who had just discovered the poetry of TS Eliot and was in love with the ideas put forth in The Four Quartets, The Waste Land and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I also realize that The Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats is not in the same league as the others I mentioned, but I wanted to devour all of it at that age. I had never seen a show, at that point, that was so dance heavy - and so began my love affair with dance.

Call me a sap, but I was so moved by Grizabella's transfer to the heavyside layer, that I remember crying. I saw the show twice more, and it got me every time. I never saw Betty Buckley. I believe I saw Laurie Beechman (who I adored) do the role all three times. When she makes her I impassioned plea for contact, to recapture a bit of her long lost "days in the sun," I lost it every single time.

Would I still love it today if I saw it? I can't say. But thirty years ago, there was magic happening at the Winter Garden Theater for this young theater goer.

SB


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grizabella

Posted by: jero 11:13 am EST 11/24/14
In reply to: re: I loved Cats - Shutterbug 06:19 pm EST 11/23/14

her parody of the jellicle ball after watching from the sidelines was horrible.


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