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'Cats are very much like you'

You pays your money and you takes your choice, and 64 million people have chosen to watch Cats. PHOTO COURTESY OF KHAM

Even now it doesn't sound like an obvious box office winner: dressing up in cat costumes and performing song and dance routines based on a modernist poet's ramblings about felines.

But Cats became the longest-running musical in both London's West End and on Broadway after its premiere nearly 26 years ago and has played to an estimated 65 million people. According to composer Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group Web site, Cats has been presented in 26 countries and translated into 14 languages.

It has not been converted into Chinese, though this is the third time the Really Useful company has toured Taiwan, after sold-out performances in 2003 and 2004. It was difficult enough for Webber and director Trevor Nunn to turn T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats into a musical, so a Mandarin version would be quite an achievement.

The script involves a lot of verbal wordplay and shines the spotlight on a tribe of Jellicle cats, who meet up to have a ball (literally) and choose a mouser who will be reborn. As if they didn't have nine lives already.

Performance notes: What: Cats Where: Taipei Arena (台北小巨蛋) 2 Nanjing E Rd Sec 4, Taipei (台北市南京東路四段2號) When: Tonight at 7:30pm; tomorrow at 2:30pm and 7:30pm; Sunday 11am and 4pm. Also at: Chungshan Hall, Taichung (台中中山堂) from Jan. 19, Chihteh Hall, Kaohsiung (至德堂) from Feb. 2 Tickets: From NT$800 to NT$5,800 for the Taipei performances Contact: Era Tickets on www.ticket.com.tw; and www.kham.com.tw or call (07) 740-3466 for tickets and further information.

All the action takes place in a junkyard, presided over by the wise Old Deuteronomy. A succession of cat characters is introduced, of whom the villainous Macavity creates mayhem and the magical Mr. Mistoffelees comes to the rescue.

While the plot thickens the essential ingredients are introduced. Songs such as The Addressing of Cats and The Moment of Happiness are well known, while 150 different artists, from Barbra Streisand to Liberace, have recorded the tune Memory.

I saw Cats in the West End about 15 years ago and was under whelmed. Perhaps the ticket prices and expectations were too high, but it seemed to be a middle-of-the-road production in respect of the musical numbers and the story line seemed muddled.

Though the high-energy performances were impressive the stage effects were so-so and it reminded me of pantomime. Webber's populist approach to music may not be to everyone's taste, but history is the decider and obviously Cats is the winner.

Currently, the show is on a record-breaking 16-year tour of the US, Holland is hosting Cats for nine months and there are visits to Tokyo, Budapest and Poland in the works for this year.

A recent look behind the scenes at the production in Australia, by a local TV crew, revealed that some of the actors bought cats to study their characteristics and they take about 20 minutes to do their own makeup.

For its Taiwan performances, a spokesperson from promoter Kham Arts said Cats would feature the usual set and the full cast from an Australian subsidiary of the London-based Really Useful Group. There's little reason to suggest this will be a second-rate production, as is regrettably sometimes the case here.
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