CATS

To help people cope with being quarantined during the coronavirus pandemic, Andrew Lloyd Webber has been posting one of his plays to You Tube each weekend. It's also a platform to raise money for charities to support actors and medical workers. 

A few weeks ago, Webber posted The Phantom of the Opera, specifically a production performed at the Royal Albert Hall several years ago to celebrate the anniversary of Webber's Phantom. We actually own the DVD of that performance and it is epic. 

Our daughter Randie got to see The Phantom of the Opera live on a trip to New York City and she obsessed with this musical.  

Last weekend, Andrew Lloyd Webber put out on his You Tube channel a production of CATS.

Unlike the version of the Phantom of the Opera, this recording was not of an actual live performance but a filmed version of the play from 1988. There is no live audience and there are some post-production special effects added.  Seeing this production on a theater stage performed without a live audience is a very surreal experience. 

Or the surrealness may just be from a bunch of people dressed in strange cat costumes singing songs in the absence of a plot. 

Some context on my perspective may be needed here. We watched this very late on Saturday evening, around 10 PM. This was a few hours after my mis-adventure walking our dog Rosie. Between my very sore muscles and my allergies kicking in, I was very, very tired. 

So here's my experience with CATS. 

A bunch of people dressed in strange cat costumes come bounding out onto the stage, crouching and slinking there way here and there. They're singing a song about cats. 

I am confused.  

I fall asleep.

My wife and daughter wake me up. 

The people dressed in strange cat costumes are now singing about some specific cat for some reason. I guess we need to know who this cat is for reasons of the plot. 

Randie informs me there is no plot.

I am confused.  

I fall asleep.

My wife and daughter wake me up. 

Now the people dressed in strange cat costumes are singing about some other specific cat. Something to do with the plot?

Randie reminds me there is no plot.

I am confused.  

I fall asleep.

My wife and daughter wake me up. 

It seems the people dressed in strange cat costumes are singing another song about another cat that we should know about. Perhaps this has something to do with the plot? 

My wife Andrea says our daughter is right, there is no plot. 

I am confused.  

I fall asleep.

My wife and daughter wake me up. 

Elaine Page in a strange cat costume is singing "Memory". Hey, I know that song! Is CATS almost over?  

No, it's not.  

I am confused.  

I fall asleep.

My wife and daughter wake me up. 

Once more the people dressed in strange cat costumes are singing about a specific cat we apparently need to know about. Why? Something to do with the plot?

Abandon all hope, I tell myself.  There is no plot.

I am confused.  

I fall asleep.

My wife and daughter wake me up. 

The people dressed in strange cat costumes are singing about yada yada yada! 

I am confused.  

I fall asleep.

My wife and daughter wake me up. 

Elaine Page in a strange cat costume is singing "Memory". For real this time! She blowing the roof off the joint! If there was an audience, they would be giving a standing ovation.

Is there really no audience? 

Or maybe there is an audience and they're just confused. 

Or asleep?  

Then Elaine Page goes to Cat Heaven or something as the other cats sing a song about cats and the show ends. 

The fact that I spent the next two days not feeling well at all was just an unfortunate coincidence.  

You know the expression, "You had to be there"? I imagine that CATS is one of those productions that really relies on being present for the spectacle of a live performance.  

By the way, my daughter has seen the CATS movie that came out last year. Maybe I can con her into writing a Cinema Sunday post about her experience. 

As for my experience with the production of CATS that I saw, this is the best I can give you.

I am confused.  

I going to go to sleep now.