Making the Cats Meow

By RICHARD CORLISS

A British hit musical comes purring to Broadway

Practical cats, dramatical cats, Pragmatical cats, fanatical cats, Oratorical cats, delphicorical cats, Skeptical cats, dyspeptical cats. . .

On the fourth floor of a renovated factory off Union Square in lower Manhattan, early on a sweltering August day, romantical cats and pedantical cats, allegorical cats and metaphorical cats are assembling. They may be masquerading as Broadway performers--the nearly anonymous acting-singing-dancing dynamos who pump the American musical machine--but for as long as their stamina and luck hold out, they are the American Cats. Big or small, rotund or svelte, white or black or Oriental, a company of graceful felines is preparing to prance and caterwaul on the Winter Garden stage in a 2 1/2-hr. extravaganza of song and dance (with hardly a word of spoken dialogue) that is the most highly touted foreign musical ever to hit Broadway. In the previews, which begin this week, these 30 young show people--and their mentors, Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, Director Trevor Nunn and Choregrapher Gillian Lynne-will be workng to turn this $4 million production into a Broadway hit. Says Lynne with a chill of anticipation: "It's like Americans doing Shakespeare and taking it to England."

Cats' pedigree is impeccable: lyrics by T.S. Eliot from his Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, a collection of witty verses the poet wrote in the 1930s for the amusement of the children of his relatives and friends; and music by Lloyd Webber, currently the most successful composer for Broadway and the West End (Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat). In London, Cats has been a sold-out smash since it opened in May 1981. But the New York version "will not be a clone of the other," says Producer Cameron Mackintosh. Four main characters have been cut and others merged. Four songs have undergone major rewrites. Other numbers have been stretched or tightened "to take advantage of the special strengths of the American company," says Mackintosh. Lloyd Webber maintains that the final American Cats audition "was one of the most humbling experiences I've ever had in the theater. The talent was extraordinary. We could have cast the show five times over that day."

In their second week of rehearsal, the chosen Shubert Alley cats are getting down to business: learning to feel feline. Says Steven Gelfer, 33, one of eight acrobat-dancers in the troupe: "We spent hours on our hands and knees--moving about, resting, cleaning ourselves. Now we have to take what we learned from being on all fours and transfer it to two legs. Just when we were getting comfortable on our knees!" Ken Page, 28, who will play the patriarchal Old Deuteronomy, reports that "Trevor has won our trust, and we've opened up for him."

Trevor Nunn, 42, is a professional sorcerer. Last year he led his Royal Shakespeare Company to a Broadway triumph with his 8 1/2-hr. production of Nicholas Nickleby. But Nunn had never directed a full-scale musical, and initially he had reservations about Lloyd Webber's project. "For popular theater to succeed," he says, "it has to have a narrative spine, and the Book of Cats is anthological. I told Andrew to round up two pianos and five performers and do the piece in a very small theater." A few months later, Lloyd Webber showed Nunn an unpublished Eliot cat poem sent to him by the poet's widow Valerie, about a woeful demimondaine named Grizabella. "It hit home all Eliot's themes of time, age, mortality and change," Nunn says. "After reading that poem, I told Andrew that the jigsaw had come together. We would create a serious show--and make Grizabella central to the story."

Betty Buckley, the Broadway Grizabella, stands off to one side of the rehearsal hall, a study in pensive alienation, her farm-fresh face set off by cheekbones so beautifully defined that you could cut your finger on them. The day before, she and Nunn had spent a 2 1/2-hr. session analyzing his lyrics to Cats' haunting hit ballad Memory (one of two lyrics based on Eliot's poetry but not written by him). "Trevor's so insightful it's spooky. He's spooky," she says. "He likes to work with a lot of mystery. During our talk, I was dying for the whole meal, but I got just the salad and first course." Buckley is called for her first solo--and her body droops into the walk of an animal old before its time; her face turns haggard, wary, with a residue of pride. She sings, and her crystal voice cuts the air, transforming the workroom into a Broadway stage, a theatrical epiphany.

The work continues. It is Labor Day, 2 1/2 weeks before the first preview, and the cast cats scat through their warmups. An assistant choreographer calls out a step: "One two three, paw paw. Then you go.' Anna McNeely, a pudgy redheaded doll who plays the finicky Gumbie Cat, practices a two-step endlessly, expressionlessly, in front of one of the huge mirrors. Donna King, one punk pussycat with coal-black hair and a Kabuki-white face, achieves the mystery of felinity by puckering her lips and wiggling her tail. Two dancers, passing each other, mew and rub shoulders. And then, in the middle of a group number, the hum of energy is pierced by an agonized scream. Willie Rosario, who plays the strutting Skimbleshanks, is writhing on the floor in the twin pains of torn knee ligaments and the bitter awareness that his big shot at Broadway stardom has just backfired. Choreographer Lynne assures him, "If you can get back here by opening night, Oct. 7, you'll find Skimbleshanks waiting for you."

If Lynne, 53, were not so resilient, she might need some consoling herself. Lynne was responsible for every bit of movement onstage, while Nunn concentrated on creating a narrative and giving character to the various roles. In the London production she gave Cats shape and style, integrating the stretching, apparently boneless feline movements with the rat-a-tat precision of Broadway choreography--only to have the show criticized by some visiting American writers for lacking a high "pizazz quotient."

The American Cats were, at first, more perplexed than critical. "When Gillian showed us the steps," says Hector Jaime Mercado, 33, "they looked like the most peculiar damn things--no sense of flow or rhythm." Steven Gelfer knows why: "To turn us into cats, Gillian has departed from the traditional dance vocabulary. Her movement is difficult and very exciting." She is ever on the move, urging her dancers: "Think jazz. Think under the beat, not on it. Step over a huge piece of marshmallow, something soft. Those bottoms could be naughtier! And now, let's do it once more, just for luck." Timothy Scott, 27, who dances the featured role of Mr. Mistoffelees, sighs the ultimate compliment: "We're not used to dancing this hard on Broadway."

Then Lynne puts her new cast through its first complete run-through of the 13-min. Jellicle Ball number. Says Ken Page: "You could see the exhaustion during that number, their faces down to their knees, but they kept going. When they were finished there was a tremendous sense of exhilaration. It was one of those collective moments when you realize that the show is going to be terrific, that the audience is going to scream." Says Nunn: "It was like Sebastian Coe going for the world record. At the end we all had tears in our eyes."

This week the first paying audiences will see whether that exhilaration is contagious. As the most expensive show mounted on Broadway, Cats needs to stay around for quite a while. But why not? Grease, Broadway's longest-running musical, ran a mere eight years. Everybody knows Cats has nine lives. --By Richard Corliss.

Reported by Elaine Dutka/New York

With reporting by Elaine Dutka/New York

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