This pop-cultural phenomenon has been performed on stage for
more than 50 million patrons in 26 countries for almost 18 years,
churning more than $2 billion in ticket sales. Now that Cats
has finally made it to the small screen, attention must be paid
not just by fans of this critic-proof show, but also by those
entertainment mavens who have somehow avoided Cats until now.
The video version has been restaged but, alas, not really reconceived
for its new medium.
The video cast, assembled from London, Amsterdam, and New York
productions, is competent. Ken Page as Old Deuteronomy, Jacob
Brent as Mr. Mistoffelees, and Elaine Paige--the original London
Grizabella, the Glamour Cat well past her prime--are a great
deal more than that. Paige has toned down her theatrical belting
of her big number, "Memory," and allowed the faded ruin of her
character's soul to prevail in close-up. For all the "covers"
of her signature song, Paige's version remains definitive. The
video is, by definition, more intimate, not always a good thing:
costumes are even more Halloweeny in garish close-up, the cats
less cuddly without that all-important interaction, the stage's
appropriately midnight lighting transmuted to a Las Vegas neon.
And the chorus of cats in production numbers is even clunkier
and more amorphous in two- and three-shots.
The one complete newcomer to the cast is the 90-year-old icon
among English actors John Mills, a delight as Gus the Theatrical
Cat. Sir John and his character show the youngsters how it's
done in close-up, largely behind the eyes, abetted by a heart-tugging
delivery of his one song. Yet virtually all of the songs are
lip-synched, further robbing the video Cats of its onstage seeming
spontaneity. It's clearer than ever that Lloyd Webber's music
is mostly twaddle, with the important exception of "Memory,"
which instantly and rightly became one of the genuine theater
standards not dependent on context, in the vein of Stephen Sondheim's
"Send in the Clowns." On the plus side, most of the Cats characters
and lyrics, from T.S. Eliot's 14-poem Old Possum's Book of Practical
Cats, are far better defined and understood from the video version.