Review: CATS at The Orpheum Theatre Memphis

It's a fan-favorite and it's back at the Orpheum Theatre Memphis! Cats is the 4th longest-running Broadway show, coming in behind The Lion King, and is a sung-through musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The musical opened at the Orpheum Theatre on Webber's birthday and continues to dazzle audiences with fun costumes, incredible dancing and acrobatics, and some pretty meow-tiful music ( get ready for a whole lot of cat puns ;)

Based on the 1939 poetry collection of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S Eliot, Cats tells the story of the Jellicle tribe and the night they make the "Jellicle choice" by deciding which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer aka Kitty Heaven and come back to a new life. Webber began working on the music in 1977, the first presentation of the compositions happening in 1980. Practical Cats, as it was called at that time, was presented as a song cycle at the Sydmonton Festival. T.S. Eliot's widow, Valerie, was in attendance and brought along various unpublished poems by Eliot. Some of them were rejected from Eliot's book because they were "too sad for children", one of these being "Grizabella the Glamour Cat". It was then that Webber decided to turn the songs into a full musical.

The show opened at the New London Theatre in the West End in 1981 and premiered on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1982. It went on to win numerous awards including Best Musical at the Tony Awards in 1983. Since then, it has been translated into 15 languages and has performed in over 30 countries. A feature film starring some big names was released in 2019. Still, lots of people wonder what is it about Cats that makes it such a popular show? My thoughts? The larger than life set and the costumes/make-up help bring the audience into a fantasy a world, delivering them on a wacky adventure like only live theatre can do.

President and CEO of the Orpheum Theatre Group, Brett Batterson, has his own theory on the show's popularity.

"I think CATS has entered the rarified air of such perennial entertainment hits as The Nutcracker and Disney's The Lion King. These are shows that parents took their children to see. Many times, it might have been the first time these young people experienced the magic of live entertainment. As these children grew, and had their own children, these parents wanted their children to know the same joy they had as youngsters by introducing them to these productions. And so the magic continues year-after-year."

Entering the theatre, guests are treated with a scrim bearing the iconic Cats logo. Everyone recognizes the yellow cat eyes with a dancer inside. It was actually because of this logo that the show's name was changed. Producer Cameron Mackintosh asked the advertising agency Dewynters to design a poster for the musical and a very minimalistic design was presented: a pair of feline eyes with dancers as the pupils. The whole creative team loved the design but felt the show's title Practical Cats did not quite go with the design. Thus the show's title was shortened to Cats.

When the scrim is lifted, the set comes into focus and the lighting looks like cat eyes blinking at the audience from the junkyard. The original set designers sought to create "an environment rather than a set" and that's exactly what they did. The oversized props give the illusion that the actors on stage are the size of actual cats.

Cats is truly an ensemble show, with no leads. The music and the choreography are done seamlessly and the ensemble all work together to bring the magic to life. Behind me at this performance sat a family with two young children. They squealed the entire show about who their favorites were (the "pretty white kitty" and the "striped kitty" (I was confused as nearly all of them had stripes but I was just glad the little ones were enjoying live theatre!)

The costumes and make-up are always paw-some! John Napier, who designed both set AND costumes, combined both cat and human features in his designs based on hints from Eliot's poems. Though the base of the costume is fairly the same (a unitard with fur patches and arm/leg warmers to resemble paws) but it is the make-up that is used to bring out the cat's unique personality. I think it's these features that also make the show appealing to all ages. The musical is a heavy dance show featuring many styles of music.

Cats is certainly no stranger to the Orpheum Stage, as it has been here 18 times in the show's history! It runs until the 27th so don't fur-get to purrrchase your tickets today!

To post a comment, you must register and login.