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 2½-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."