The Strange Allure of 'Cats': A Reflection on Silliness, Spectacle, and Primal Appeal
There’s something undeniably bizarre about Cats. I mean, let’s be honest—it’s a musical about felines singing and dancing in a junkyard. On paper, it sounds like a fever dream concocted by someone who’s spent too much time around housepets. And yet, here we are, decades after its debut, still talking about it. What makes this particularly fascinating is how Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1981 masterpiece manages to be both deeply, deeply silly and utterly captivating. It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion—you know it’s absurd, but you can’t look away.
The Primal Pull of Anthropomorphic Cats
One thing that immediately stands out is the way Cats taps into something primal. The actors, with their prosthetic ears and tails, move like actual felines—stalking, preening, arching their backs. It’s a spectacle that feels almost infantile, yet strangely hypnotic. Personally, I think this is where the show’s genius lies. It bypasses the rational brain and speaks directly to our lizard brains, or perhaps our inner toddlers. Watching it, I couldn’t help but feel like I was witnessing a bizarre ritual, one that’s equal parts mesmerizing and unsettling.
What many people don’t realize is how much Cats relies on its choreography to carry the narrative. Drew McOnie’s direction in this revival is slick, with the cast moving like a well-oiled machine. There’s a sinewy grace to their movements, a fluidity that makes the whole thing feel almost dreamlike. But here’s the kicker: it’s all in service of a plot that’s essentially a glorified talent show for cats. If you take a step back and think about it, the Jellicle Ball is just a fancy way of saying, ‘Let’s pick one cat to go to cat heaven.’ It’s absurd, but somehow, it works.
The Music: Earworms and Existential Wails
Let’s talk about the music, because this is where Cats really divides people. ‘Memory,’ Grizabella’s heart-wrenching ballad, is a masterpiece—there’s no denying it. But the rest of the score? It’s a hodgepodge of pop-rock, light jazz, and even a hint of reggae. Personally, I find the eclectic mix both charming and jarring. It’s like Lloyd Webber threw everything at the wall and saw what stuck.
A detail that I find especially interesting is how T.S. Eliot’s original poems, written for his godchildren, are transformed into this grand spectacle. Eliot’s verses are quaint, almost nostalgic, harking back to a bygone era of theater cats and steam trains. But when paired with Lloyd Webber’s bombastic music, they take on a new life. It’s a collision of highbrow and lowbrow, and it raises a deeper question: Can something be both profoundly silly and artistically significant?
The Revival: Safe, Slick, and Slightly Soulless
McOnie’s revival is undeniably polished. The cast is talented, the choreography is tight, and the staging is clever. But here’s where I’ll be controversial: it feels a bit safe. Compared to the drag/ballroom adaptation that recently wowed New York, this version lacks edge. It’s like the show has been sanitized for mass consumption, stripped of its potential to truly shock or challenge.
What this really suggests is that Cats is a chameleon of a musical. It can be reimagined in countless ways, but each version reveals something about the cultural moment it inhabits. The original 1981 production was radical for its time, breaking the fourth wall and stripping back the set. This revival, by contrast, feels like a nostalgia piece—a reminder of why we fell in love with Cats in the first place, but without pushing the envelope.
The Legacy: A Cultural Juggernaut
You’ve got to admire Lloyd Webber’s ability to shape public taste. Partnering with a dead poet to create a musical about cats? It’s mad, but it worked. Cats became the West End’s longest-running show until Les Misérables dethroned it, and it bolstered the fortunes of Eliot’s publisher, Faber. It’s a testament to the power of spectacle and the enduring appeal of the absurd.
But here’s the thing: Cats is not just a musical; it’s a cultural phenomenon. It’s been memed, parodied, and even turned into a disastrous film (let’s not talk about the ‘butthole cut’). Its silliness is part of its charm, but it’s also what makes it so polarizing. In my opinion, that’s exactly why it endures. It’s a show that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and in doing so, it invites us to do the same.
Final Thoughts: Embracing the Absurd
As I sat in the audience at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, I couldn’t help but smile. Yes, Cats is deeply, deeply silly. Yes, the plot is flimsy, and the characters are basically just cats with personality disorders. But that’s the point. It’s a show that celebrates the absurdity of life, the joy of spectacle, and the primal appeal of watching humans pretend to be animals.
From my perspective, Cats is a reminder that art doesn’t always have to be profound to be meaningful. Sometimes, it’s enough to be entertaining, to make us laugh, to make us feel something—even if that something is sheer bewilderment. So, the next time someone asks me why Cats is still around, I’ll tell them this: Because in a world that often takes itself too seriously, a little silliness goes a long way.
