CATS!

 Is Cats a classic musical? I've avoided it mostly because many many people have told me to avoid it but when it comes up as part a a season ticket package for traveling Broadway series I guess I've been trapped in a tree I cant avoid. 

Cats came through Omaha last evening and for the first time in nearly two years I set foot in a theater to watch something in person. It was bizarre. Masked up, paranoid and hoping that fucking virus found me deplorable enough to avoid we entered the place to observe Cats from the front row of the balcony.

Did I like Cats, the 40 year old play that people either love or hate? Let me take 3 steps to do this.

1) The Orpheum Theater 

This place was built as a movie and vaudeville house damn near 100 years ago. It deteriorated over the years and I remember seeing a movie there as a kid in the 1960s for being a great Safety Patrol guy. Me and everybody else.

In the 1970's the old place was remodeled and turned into a Performing Arts Center and featured concerts and plays and whatever religious scammer blew into town. I saw Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstine , Dizzy Gillespie yeah ok Im a jazz fan. But the Orpheum was built for 1927 people and  are lets face it 1927 people arent 6 foot 2. The first row of the balcony may seem great in theory, but theres a cement wall there and a railing.  6 Foot 2 guys cannot possibly get any leg room. In other words quite honestly the place is a dump for 2021. 

2) Cats Act 1

A bunch of talented actors, dancers and singers dressed as cats hop around a stage made to look like a junk yard sing some tunes, and with no apparent story line or plot it began to resemble a haphazard concert with some decent tunes and some that you couldn't wait to end. Then came the end of Act 1 with a rendition of the former guys favorite tune, Memories.

Now most people I've talked to left at this point having heard the only damn song anybody knows. Whats the point of going on? This is a plotless, pointless exercise in futility. We thought about bailing but stuck it out.

3) Cats Act 2

In the words of Larry David, it was pretty pretty pretty good. The tunes picked up, the plot didn't really improve but the old cat got to sing Memories two more times and I was entertained. The Magical Mister Mephistopheles sequence with a dancer doing flips, coat changing colors , and an energy that was quite remarkable was the highlight. Then it ended with the old cat singing Memories yet again and I was now aware why "nobody" likes this play, They all freakin leave at halftime.

My advice. Get there 90 minutes after the start time and you will think damn this is good.  I also just wish Andrew Lloyd Webber would write a play named DOGS!

And one more thing. Even the baffling Act 1 would have been better than the alternative act playing in town last night. The fuckin Eagles. Dude.