Immortality Hard to Come By by Sylvia S. Cutler, March 17, 1997
T.S. Eliot is a name that every English speaking person in the world has been aware of for a very long period in the world of literary endeavor. He was a poet, a teacher, a banker, an essayist, a journal editor, a publisher, a playwright, an author, a Nobel prize winner, an Officier de la Legion d'Honneur, and a winner of other distinguished honors. He was also a native of St. Louis, Missouri.
He produced many distinguished works in his lifetime, but his name becomes immortal because of a book he wrote for his Godchildren about a collection of cats, all named in whimsical fashion--Lilliecat, Jellylorum, Mirza Murad Alibeg, Wiskuscat, Cockalorum and many others. His book, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" was published in 1939 with his own drawings. The man's imagination, whimsy, and sense of humor are beyond compare; he wrote all his life, and if ever it was his intention to be noted, to be remembered, to be celebrated, he has certainly managed that. He died in 1965. In 1977 Andrew Lloyd Webber began to set the cat poems to music because it was a book he remembered from his childhood. What a grand and glorious idea. And what a grand and glorious musical it has become.
If you haven't seen "Cats" and if you don't know "Cats" and if you've never read the work of T.S. Eliot, you have indubitably experienced a most grievous black hole in your psyche and must make immediate amends. No one should have to get through life without experiencing "Cats." It is an error, a serious mistake, a tragedy. Whimsy belongs in every life; it is more important than food; more important than champagne; more important than romance; more important than almost everything except family and love. But "Cats" is family and love.
What we saw on stage at the National Theatre recently may have seemed puzzling at first. What is this? A junkyard. Renegade cats on the loose. Weird costumes. Language impossible to understand. What is a Jellicle cat?
You learn. These are not people. They are not actors. These are cats slithering and sliding, leaping and jouncing, creeping and rolling. You get to know them--Mistoffelees, Bombalurina, Jennyanydots, Grizabella, Rumpleteazer, Old Deuteronomy, the Pollicle Dogs, Sillabub, Gus, Growltiger, Griddlebone, Macavity. How can you not know them? They look like cats. They act like cats. They talk like cats. They ARE cats.
There is no particular plot. Rather there are episodes--moments of happiness, moments of sadness. When a cat gets old and feeble, other cats take care of him. If a cat becomes arrogant, other cats take him down. When a cat gets too serious, other cats lighten his mood. When a cat gets silly, other cats sober her up.
Webber's musical score is fantastic, as imaginative a score as I have ever heard. And the songs are equally astonishing--full of melody, power, passion, pathos. I felt chills coursing through my body as the production moved through its various episodes. The dance of the Siamese cats was amusing. The dance of the pirate cats was provocative. Grizabella's rendition of "Memory" was thrilling. The staging and special effects were spectacular.
The dancing, the choreography, the gymnastics were stunning and brought the house down. Cats roaming in the aisles literally set the audience on its ear. The orchestra was outstanding.
Suspend reality. Don't expect anything you've ever seen before. You may not know who is who or what is what, but you don't need to. If you can't get to this production of "Cats," there will certainly be another. "Cats" has been playing somewhere, often in many cities, for the past ten years. It's good for twenty more.