The Midnight Train Crossing

I saw CATS last night (7 July). And as it was kinda cold and I wasn’t planning on seeing it again, I didn’t go to the Stage Door afterwards, even though I probably should have to personally tell the performers that I enjoyed the show, but ah well.
I spent a bit more on tickets then I would have, but that is because I was in one of my denser moments, and I waited until almost the last moment, but the seats were pretty good.
I bought a program because I wanted one and I’ll probably scan the pictures at some point.
The usual “Please turn off all cell phones” was kinda cute. Not quite as creative as the Starlight one, but still cute. “Since Kitties don’t like loud noises, please turn off all cell phones and pagers”

Because I’m not as hard-core of a CATS fan as I am Starlight I cannot recognize all of the kitties by sight. Because of that I’ll only comment on the ones that I know. This is not to say that those that I didn’t know who they were weren’t good too :-)

Some overall thoughts about the whole show: The dancing was excellent. I was really impressed by pretty much everybody. The acrobatics were pretty spiffy to. A lot of the cats did cartwheels and flips and such, which was rather impressive.
Mistoffelees (Shane Hall) didn’t fail to disappoint during his song.
Grizabella (Anne Brummel) Skimbleshanks (Adam Ryan Tackett) Jellylorum (Kym Chambers) and Bombalurina (Jackie Trippeer) stood out for me for having good voices.

The entrance of everybody during the Overture was pretty spiffy. They came in from the side aisles wearing green lit up glasses that looked like cat eyes.
Because I’m not as hard-core of a CATS fan as I am Starlight I cannot recognize all of the kitties by sight. Because of that I had a tendency to watch the ones that I recognized.

At the end of the Prologue on the “What’s a Jellicle Cat?” line it was rather cute. For they did it twice, wandered off and then darted back over to the side of stage and repeated it again in complete disbelief.

During the Naming Of Cats, Victoria and Quaxo/Mistoffelees helped contribute to the theory that there’s some sort of connection between those two. They were playing with each other’s ‘paws’ cutely.

Munkustrap sang the Invitation part, not Quaxo, so I still didn’t get to hear what he sounded like.
Some of the kittens had really cute expressions on the line, “Where we all rejoice.”
Quaxo and Cassandra had a lot of interaction going on in the background. A lot of cuddling between those two, which I didn’t expect, but was kinda amused by because of what those two do later.

The Old Gumbie Cat was a fun song, especially with the tap-dancing Beetles. At first I thought that Jennyanydots’ voice was rather screechy, but then when she sang later in Bustopher Jones she sounded fine, so I guess that was something that that the actress just decided to do.

I really liked the Rum Tum Tugger – he was quite amusing. I usually don’t single out that character, but this time I did. At the end of his song he was being terribly amused that the kittens were all meowing over him.

Some of the adult cats were rather rough on the kittens when they pushed them away from Grizabella. I *heard* Quaxo land on the stage when Munkustrap pushed him away.
Even then I could tell that she had a powerhouse voice.

Bustopher Jones came waddling out. I agree with whoever says the line that he's a very round cat. (And by the way, the delivery of the line "It can be no surprise that under our eyes he has grown unmistakably round" was nice). My mom really liked that part, especially when he nearly fell over.

Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were great. Tis one of my favorite songs and these two actors (Mario Martinez and Jenny Florkowski) did a very good job of it. Some cute things that they did during their song: "When after supper one of the girls suddenly misses her Woolworth pearls" Rumpelteazer put her paws over the pearls around her neck and gasped, then giggled.
After the "From a vase that was commonly said to be Ming" they stood there at the edge of the stage, pretending to watch it fall. Then they looked act each other and were like "Oh no" and then backed up center stage and burst out laughing. And the cartwheel when they hang on to each other was just awesome.

Not really much to say about Old Deuteronomy, I'm not the biggest fan of that song, but watching it was easier to pay attention to then listening to it.
They didn't have the Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles, but that was okay. I wasn't heartbroken about it.

During the beginning of the Jellicle Ball, one of the kittens - I'm not sure which, sounded rather off-key, so that wasn't so cool.
I was amused that Mistoffelees and Victoria sang one of the "Jellicle cats are white and black" lines.
The Jellicle ball, with it's endless dancing was a lot more interesting to watch live then on the video. I was rather entertained to see Mistoffelees and Cassandra going at it for awhile during the mating scene.
And of course I liked it when he 'turned on' the Christmas lights that were strung around the stage and around the theatre.
Memory was pretty. As I said before Grizabella has an awesome voice. I felt quite sorry for her when she was doing her little dance.

During intermission after the large amount of people made their way past us, heading out to wherever they were going, I turned to my mom to ask her what she thought. She said that she was enjoying the show.
Because I was talking to her for awhile I didn’t notice until very near the end of the intermission that Old Deuteronomy was sitting on stage, absolutely still the whole time.
Before the house lights went completely down, several of the kitties came out on stage, including Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer, who were by far the most entertaining to watch. He was on all fours and Rumpelteazer lay down across his back, then he carried her around the stage. It was quite cute.

The Moments of Happiness isn’t always my favorite song in the show, but yeah. I watched some of the other kitties. Rumpelteazer and Mungojerrie were cuddling, as were Quaxo and Victoria.
Sillabub, who sang the Memory bit, had a pretty voice too.

Gus the theatre cat was cute. He was pretty cuddly looking. I like the song anyway, but Jellylorum had a very good voice, so that made it better.
The “terrible two” were also cute to watch in the background. She was in the pipe and he was on top, they kept batting paws.

I’d never seen Growltiger’s Last Stand before, and I was really happy to finally get to see it. I liked the introduction. Gus didn’t have a weak voice, but it was more of a pretending to be weak voice, as the cat is old, but on the “could do it again.... could do it again... could do it AGAIN!” and he ripped off his coat, revealing the pirate costume under it.
His “crew” - I don’t know which cats were playing them - were great. They were very entertaining to watch while they were singing the narration.
I also liked the “Because it was a Siamese that mauled his missing ear” line because after that Growltiger let out a pretty cute ‘meow’.
Griddlebone, however, stole the show with her long feathery white tail. She kinda made me think of Duchess from The Aristocats. Their duet was funny as each of them kept trying to take center stage, and then as she tried to get his attention, but he was too wrapped up in his song.
I loved the costume of the Genghis and his Siamese cats! They were sparkly and pretty and such. Yes, brilliant description I know, but I just adored them. It’s too bad there weren’t any pictures of them in the program.

Obviously I like the song Skimbleshanks. This particular actor had a very good voice and I really enjoyed it.
Mungojerrie and another cat - I can’t recognize them all by sight - were causing difficulty when Skimbles was trying to keep them all in line. It was funny.
The train was cool too - the “cab” of the engine was shiny purple. And of course, it was a steamer, the best sort of train naturally.

During Macavity, Victoria and Sillabub moved off to the side of the stage, off in the corner, and they looked a bit look book-ends to me the way they were sitting there.
Demeter didn’t have a bad voice, but it didn’t really impress me too much. One of the guys was out there too. He wasn’t singing, but he was just sorta there. It might’ve been Alonzo, but with the dark lighting it was rather difficult to tell.
The Fight was well-choreographed :) It was almost amusing at the end, when Macavity blew out the lights and of course, Munkustrap was well prepared enough to have a flashlight - and it did look like a flashlight.

I liked the Tugger singing Mr. Mistoffelees and was looking forward to his entrance. Mistoffelees’s sparklyness held me in awe for the duration of the song.
His dancing was awesome, he did a lot of jumps and spins and I can see that perhaps the actor is a ballet dancer. All in all, it was fun to watch that song. He had cute expressions too, like when he was trying to be modest in the face of the Tugger singing about him.
I liked the flying leap that Mistoffelees took into Old Deuteronomy’s arms after he brought him back. He flew pretty far across the stage.

Grizabella rocked the house during the third and final version of Memory, that’s all I have to say about that.
It was cute when all of the cats finally accepted her. They took the dramatic rising tire up to the platform that came down from the ceiling. When Grizabella ascended to the Heaviside Layer the rising platform looked a bit to me like she was heading off in a space ship.

Again, during the Addressing of Cats, Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were kinda cuddling a bit.
The guy sitting next to me thought that song was pretty amusing - and I think so too :)

Grizabella came down for the bows and hopped off the platform, then danced with Munkustrap a bit, which was cute.
I liked how the first song that they played during the bows was Skimbleshanks song. :)
After the bows, everybody wandered off stage except for the Tugger and Bombalurina.
She was prancing around the stage, waving her tail around, being rather sensual.
He looked at her, looked at the audience and looked a bit like, “Must resist... must resist...” But he didn’t resist for very long and went over to her.
She headed over to him, leaned in and then gave him a hard shove, pushing him down to the ground, then walked over him.
He got up and she gave him a “Come Here” look and then he grinned at the audience and race off after her.
It was one of the best parts of the whole show :)

So I had a lot of fun seeing this show, and I would like to see it again some day.
But I’m glad to be able to say that I have finally seen CATS