A Purr-fect Return
With CATS the Musical on the road in a national tour Coral Drouyn looks at the magic of both the animals and the much-loved show, speaking to ‘Gus’ - Todd McKenney - and choreographer Chrissie Cartwright.
Cats are strange and enigmatic creatures. They have a mystique that is like no other animal and are often difficult to connect with. There’s no ambivalence with cats - you either love them or profoundly dislike them. I speak as someone who is currently in the service of three amazing creatures.
Remarkably CATS as a musical has much the same effect on people. Audiences either adore it or plead that they’re allergic to stage dander and avoid it. The latter are in the minority and, as we all know, cats have nine lives, and CATS has many more than that.
T.S. Eliot adored cats (the animals) and was so taken by their individuality and unique characters that he wrote a book of poems named Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats for his grandchildren back in 1939, to humorously explain the psychology of how cats think (we cat lovers know, for example, that cats are way too smart to do ANYTHING we tell them).
Some twenty years later a young boy called Andrew Lloyd Webber began his lifelong love of the feline species when he read Eliot’s book, and some twenty years after that he began work on the phantasmagorical musical that we know and love. ALW has had a lifelong love of cats – currently two magnificent Turkish Vans - though he more recently got a therapy dog to help get him through the trauma of seeing his beloved work butchered on screen.
Though some may claim that a dog is man’s best friend (while diamonds are a girl’s) the truth is a home without a cat is just … well … a house. It’s not by chance that there isn’t a musical about dogs - it would be all plot and butt sniffing.
CATS the musical has basically no plot - it’s all about the characters and why they are who they are, much like life really. Interestingly Eliot did plan a book about dogs and cats and wrote one poem about dogs, The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles. Imagine a musical called dogs - that would be a critic’s wet dream.
So, one of the most successful musicals of all time has hit our shores once again, this time for a 40th anniversary tour, and, although we can’t match the 21 years it spent in the West End, or the 18 years on Broadway, loyal audiences in Australia have made the show a phenomenal hit with prolonged runs of each production.
As someone who embraced its magic from the very first show in Australia 40 years ago, I was thrilled to have the chance to talk to two people who are intrinsically part of the CATS story. Chrissie Cartwright, as Associate Director and Choreographer for Australia, has a mission to honour and keep alive the legacy of Gillian Lynne, whose choreography of Cats is equally as important to the show as the music.
Todd McKenney, who has rightly earned the title “Star” after 42 years strutting his stuff, has been involved with the show for forty years, and with ALW musicals since he landed his first professional role in Song and Dance back in 1983. It was only fitting that I asked them both what they believed was the generational fascination with the show.
“Well, it is a fantasy, but it’s a real fantasy if you see what I mean,” Chrissie explained. “The audience suspends disbelief and connects with the characters. They need to believe they are watching actual cats, even though it’s written in such a way that you think ‘I know someone like that.’ There’s every human personality trait and emotion within the tribe; some of it is very subtle. Plus, the makeup, and Gillie’s choreography, which truly is so feline, moves that dancers don’t normally have to make…it’s so different to any other musical. We want to believe in the magic.”
Todd echoes the sentiments.
“It isn’t just kids that connect, though it’s such a delight to see whole groups of youngsters from dance schools in the audience. It’s like we all get to be a fly on the wall … or the junkyard … and see what cats really get up to when we’re not looking. I’m more a dog person myself, but the way cats move fascinates everyone, young or old. It’s a show that is always brilliantly cast, so yes, it’s the dancing and the costumes and makeup, but there’s really something quite profound at the core of it, values that we all have to learn in life. And I love it because it’s an ensemble piece, and that’s where I started.”
“It’s amazing how people relate to different characters,” Chrissie added. “We had a group of underprivileged children to one performance in the West End and afterwards I asked a nine-year-old which cat he liked best and he said ‘Grizabella, because she’s had a hard life like me.’ He understood her, and I was very touched.”
The show’s critics always mention that the show doesn’t have dialogue, or any plot, so it isn’t truly a musical, just a dance show with music – and yet, counter to that, are the values of acceptance, understanding, forgiveness and redemption. Is it fair to call it a dance show?
“Not at all,” Chrissie explained. “Yes, you need to be a great dancer but that isn’t enough. You also have to be a credible member of the tribe. I have turned down very fine dancers because, somehow, they would not fit in with the tribe. Cats don’t bond easily, but when they do they are fiercely loyal. Grizabella’s whole story is that she has been ostracized by the tribe and must regain their respect and understanding. There are character arcs throughout – there may not be a linear plot but there are stories galore.”
Despite the success of the show, the film adaptation was a disastrous flop and I wonder if Chrissie has any thoughts on it.
“The producers didn’t understand the concept at all,” Chrissie explained. “They didn’t recognize the credibility factor. So, the dancing was fine, but they cast a whole lot of celebrities to pretend to be cats, and it showed. There was no sense of even trying to say these are real cats. It may as well have been a cartoon. Andrew and I were just horrified. They totally missed the point.”
As a writer I know exactly what she means. If an audience doesn’t believe the characters are real, then there is no emotional connection, human or animal.
Todd, who this time round is playing Gus the Theatre Cat – the most poignant character in the show - and Bustopher Jones, has his own take on the dancing.
“You do need all the dance skills,” Todd says. “It’s grueling and amazingly physical, as you would expect. There’s certainly more dancing than I anticipated in my roles. It’s a while since I have needed to be in such good physical shape, so I took myself back to the gym. After all, a 60-year-old in lycra could be a put-off, but the truth is, for the majority of the roles, you need to be young, and fit, and able to sing while doing acrobatics, and act, and convince the audience that you are a cat. It’s bloody hard work, but worth it. And every cat has a different personality, that has to be a part of the character even in ensemble dances.”
This new cast includes some music theatre favourites like Lucy Maunder and Mark Vincent, and Leigh Archer as Gumbie Cat, but also a slew of not so familiar but brilliant young performers like Gabriyel Thomas as Grizabella, who sings the show’s one major hit song ‘Memory’. The set is once again a junkyard, but without the mountainous (and dangerous) tower of old car tyres that I remember so well.
I mention that when I first saw the show in Melbourne I was in the front row of the Grand Circle and a cat crawled right along the parapet - no wires, no safety harness. They could have fallen and been horribly injured, or someone could have thrown a drink can or a packet and made them lose their balance. I have never forgotten that remarkable cat and how it raised a paw and hissed at me.
“That was me,” Todd responded. “I was known as an acrobat as well as an all-rounder. I think I was twenty and when the director said, ‘You could crawl along the parapet up top couldn’t you?’ I just said ‘sure’. It never occurred to me it was dangerous at the time, but looking back, what was I thinking?”
As well as cats climbing the proscenium arch and walking parapets, there were cats flying, simply holding onto ropes, and climbing mountains of tyres - all dangerous stuff that would surely never be allowed in these days of health and safety.
“Absolutely,” Chrissie agreed. “The original production did have ‘stunts’ that we can no longer perform because of safety reasons. We now need harnesses for the cats to take flying leaps for example, when a rope loop was enough in the past. But the show keeps evolving. Andrew frequently makes changes to the music and the choreography gets adapted and updated, but always true to Gillie’s vision, that’s something I totally believe in.”
Perhaps only Bob Fosse has created a style that is so idiosyncratically his own, and Gillian Lynne was in her mid-fifties when she choreographed Cats and physically gave life to TS Eliot’s characters. She was an original and, love it or hate it, so is this remarkable show.
It’s now in its fourth generation of audiences and who knows how many more incarnations it will have. And if you haven’t seen it, and you’re not a cat lover, see it simply because it is, and always will be, unique musical theatre.
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