The New York Times: “Cats,” the loved-and-loathed Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about, well, cats, is returning to Broadway with an all-new taxonomy.
The show, originally set in a junkyard and featuring actors padding around in cat costumes, now has human characters who are cats only in the slang sense. This version is set in the underground ballroom scene, a queer subculture built around dance competitions.
10 comments:
I have very mixed feelings about this. I am hopeful that the team behind the transformation of the show included people from the ballroom scene. Shows like Pose have brought ballroom culture more into the mainstream, with positives and negatives that come along with that. I do want queer culture to be something that people are aware of and respectful of I want queer culture to be socially acceptable and queer people do not have to fear for their lives but sometimes the audience only takes away surface level things like the slang and other chic parts of the culture without a real understanding of where it comes from and why. This article is certainly not making me very confident but the show might be very different. The article describes ballroom as being “built around dance competitions” which is an extreme oversimplification but it is also not the most accurate oversimplification. The most accurate oversimplification is that ballroom is about queer survival.
I have seen and heard many things about this show. I love that we are slowly bringing ballroom culture to light as it is so significant in queer history. However, the musical Cats has an interesting history of being poorly adapted and leaving some of its meaning behind. I worry that this would become a commercialization or even a mockery of ballroom culture. I feel that a musical showcasing ballroom culture would be groundbreaking, but I’m not sure Cats is the medium through which to do that. Its hard for people to take Cats seriously nowadays, and I feel it wouldn’t thoroughly capture the ways queer people survived through ballroom and that aspect of a struggling, but surviving community wouldn’t be communicated to the audience. However, I do appreciate that the designers chose to stage the off-broadway production in a runway style, and incorporated aspects of ballroom culture into their costuming and choreography. I sincerely hope this show is good and translates the beauty of ballroom culture well.
I feel like Cats and all of its weird revivals and spinoffs over the last several years is becoming the new version of eighty million spinoffs and versions of Romeo and Juliet or other Shakespeare plays. Instead of Shakespeare in Space type performances, it’s now Cats but an Actual Ball. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this? I think I mostly am just generally indifferent. “What if we did cats but the ball was a Ball” kind of just sounds like a funny pun, and I’m not sure if it’s necessarily will work as a production concept, but I could also see it being a really fantastic production, and framing it as a ball could really work well with giving Cats more of an easy-to-follow plotline. I’m very curious about what the set looks like, given that according to the article, the runway setup done at PAC can’t translate exactly to the Broadway space the produciton will be in, so it definitely will be interesting to see how the design team works around this.
I honestly would have been really interested in this if they adapted the music and mixed it differently. From what I've seen thus far in this production has have been a lot of really talented dance and movement moments to absolutely god awful music. What originally made cats so great in my opinion wasn't the music, or even that much of the story. It really was just the dancing, costumes, and scenic elements. I've only ever seen photos and videos of around 3 productions of cats that I really enjoyed. What was so great about those productions was the painted distinct world. The movement was unique and distinct along with the sometimes terrifying appearances of the actors. And the sets I've seen are great because of the little alcoves among the sets. However I don't see too much of that here. I think this has the potential to be really cool, and the concept is great as well. But I sadly haven't seen the music or scenic elements doing it justice which I think could make or break a show.
I don't really think I'm a huge fan of this idea to be completely honest. I think that bringing ballroom culture to a Broadway show is really cool, and something that there should absolutely be a space for, but I really don't think that the musical cats is how it should be done. I'm really not a big Andrew Lloyd Webber fan, and I know that he has created some very important pieces of theater, but I think we need to move to some new works and better things. The show cats is mostly a spectacle with very little substance in the terms of plot. It was a huge commercial success the first time around though partially because when tourists came to see it, even if there were language barriers it didn't matter as much because the main point of the show wasn't the plot, it was mostly about the dance, costumes, and music. Because of this I don't think this revival is the best way to showcase the elements of queer culture and ballroom that it wants to, especially in a more traditional theater space on Broadway rather than the runway style venue it was in before. We need to stop doing so many new takes on old shows and start highlighting some new stories and voices.
I think the new version of Cats: The Jellicle Ball sounds way more interesting than the original. There is a more immersive feel to it, and I feel that there are a lot of new, fresh takes that are being done to Weber's work, and it is refreshing. Turning it into something inspired by the queer ballroom scene feels fresh and meaningful. The old Cats always seemed kind of weird and over-the-top to me—people in fuzzy suits singing about themselves—but this new take actually connects to real human stories about identity and belonging. I like that it’s not just recycling the past but trying to give it new life. The idea of the “Jellicle Ball” as a dance competition makes so much sense now, and it feels like it could be really emotional and fun to watch. I’m also curious to see how they’ll keep some of the original music and poetry while changing the setting completely. It feels like this revival might finally show why Cats has stuck around for so long.
I think this reimagining of Cats is really interesting, especially because it shifts the focus from literal cats to the ballroom community, which has such a deep cultural history. I appreciate that the production seems to be acknowledging the movement, identity, and storytelling aspects of ballroom rather than just using it as an aesthetic. At the same time, I’m a little worried about how it will turn out, because I imagine ballroom is a style that would be very difficult to borrow. If the production truly collaborates with people from the ballroom scene and treats that culture with respect, I think this could make Cats feel more emotionally grounded than previous versions. The idea of the runway being reimagined for Broadway also sounds exciting, since it suggests the show is trying to keep that sense of closeness and energy. Overall, I’m hopeful, but I think the execution will matter a lot.
This seems to be an unpopular opinion to everyone I’ve seen talking about this show but I actually love the original Cats, of course I didn’t see that on broadway but I enjoy the music alot and have seen alot of productions that stick to the same style as the original production and I really love it. But that doesn’t stop me from being insanely excited to see this revival. The changes they are making sound super interesting and I hope to see it when it comes. I can’t wait to see how much different the show will feel when the costumes are changed because I feel like that was such a huge part of the original production, minimizing the costumes for this revival could be a really good strong choice but I feel like it might take away the feeling of Cats. The story reimagination actually sounds really interesting, I hope I get to see this show when it opens.
I had the most unfortunate and traumatic experience of watching the movie “Cats” in theaters when it came out in 2019. Therefore, sadly, my view of Cats the musical has been forever tainted. The CGI furry demons still haunt me to this day… With that being said, I do think it’s exciting that the musical is coming back to Broadway, even if I’m hesitant to report so. The fact that Mike Bosner, producer of “Beautiful” and “Shucked” is one of the leads gives me a lot of faith in the value of this production. It’s an interesting time to bring “Cats” back into the spotlight. On the one hand, the horrific movie isn’t even a decade old and still fresh in people’s minds, but on the other hand, “Cats” is and has always been about wonder and whimsy, and right now wonder and whimsy are two things that may help us through these times.
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