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The lights go down and all of a sudden the crowd enters a large junkyard. Oversized tires and trash cover the stage. Slowly, cats creep and crawl to their marks.
Based on T.S. Eliot’s 1939 book of poetry, “Old Book of Practical Cats,” “CATS” uses his poems to portray a beautiful musical looking at the lives of a group of junkyard cats. Some of the songs are literally poems written by Eliot just put to music.
Previously, the musical ran for more than 20 years on Broadway in New York City before it was retired. Then in 1999, “CATS” opened again, beginning its tour in New York.
Thursday evening, the touring group of “CATS” came to the stage of the Maine Center for the Arts, performing for a sold-out crowd of young and old alike. The opening number “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats” explains most of the premise of the show – there will be a ball for the Jellicle cats, and at the ball, Old Deuteronomy will choose a cat who can be reborn. The show continues on, introducing a few of the important cats to the audience, such as the fickle rock star Rum Tum Tugger, Gus the Theater Cat, and Mr. Mistoffelees the Magician. The most notable musical numbers were “The Old Gumbie Cat,” about a chubby cat who taught mice how to be proper rather than chasing them, and “Growltiger’s Last Stand,” a song about the pirate, Growltiger, and the love of his life, Griddlebone. The two sing a beautiful operatic piece, followed quickly by Siamese cats attacking them.
The cast’s incredible sense of cats and how they move, along with their amazing dance numbers made for a wonderful production.
“Some of the vocals seemed off, but that added to the cat-like sound,” Kate St. John, a junior history major, said.
In some of the original productions, during “The Naming of Cats,” the cast would end on a few sour notes, and a large shoe would be thrown onto stage as if it were from some poor neighbors window who was trying to sleep. This particular production chose not to do that, but you could still get a sense of the purposeful nature of the off notes.
“It was an exhilarating explosion of color and costumes,” Michelle Reynolds, a junior journalism major, said.
From tabby cats to Persians, nearly every kind of feline was represented on stage, and for a few numbers some of the cats even dressed up as mice or roaches. The costumes were intricate and very well put together, somehow turning the human actors into their feline characters very easily.
“For the shows we’ve had [at the MCA] this semester, this is my favorite,” Nicole Norman, a junior social work major, said.
After the final feel-good number of “The Journey to the Heavyside Layer,” a song about the cat’s version of heaven that they are sent to for rebirth, the crowd could be seen smiling and clapping. “CATS” left every member of the crowd feeling purrfectly warm and fuzzy all over.
