Letting the Memory Live Again

While Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was my first  musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Phantom of the Opera was my favorite (and Sunset Boulevard with Glenn Close was the most amazing and Whistle Down the Wind was the most awful), Cats is the one I have the strongest memories of:  from the junkyard sets to the feline dancing, from "Jellicle Cats" to "Mr. Mistoffles," "Skimpleshanks the Railway Cat" to "Memory," from singing it to my first cats Curiosity and Fudgie to seeing the marquee at the Winter Garden for the first several years I lived in NYC.  Interestingly, Mama had never seen it--18 years on Broadway and she never went!--and barely knows the music, except of course the showstopper "Memory."

So yesterday was a treat for all of us when we watched the DVD of the London production with Elaine Page (though, I'm partial to Betty Buckley, of the Broadway cast).  The kids were mesmerized by the costumes and dancing, a little confused by some of Eliot's poetry, and concerned about McCavity the criminal cat and which cat would be chosen to go to the Heavyside Layer.  (I don't think they noticed all the sexual innuendo, especially of Rum Tum Tugger, or, if they didn't, couldn't make sense of it.  Thank heavens!)

Despite having seen it before, it was practically a new show for me.  I saw meaning I didn't notice amid all the fun when I was 12.  And maybe because I'm now closer to the Heavyside Layer myself and "can smile at the old days," it was more emotional.  But just as much fun, especially to introduce the kids to a show I've sung along to for almost 30 years (though I still can't hear "Memory" without getting all blubbery!).  And so today, they've been following our own jellicle cats around, while singing "Oh, well, I never, was there ever, a cat so clever as magical Mr. Mistoffles?"!

Now we'll just have to wait for it to come back to Broadway (because live is the best way to see Broadway, not on close-up DVDs which kinda undermine the magic of the theater) . . . it's Cats, so it's bound to have some more lives left!