STAGE REVIEW : FURRY SOUND, SHRUNKEN SET PLAGUE TOURING ‘CATS’

Some of its fans say the experience of seeing “Cats” was diminished between London and New York, then again between New York and Los Angeles.

Now “Cats” has landed in Long Beach. The shrinking continues.

Actually, it might work better if someone collapsed it much farther, down to an environmental staging in, say, a 200-seat “black box.” Then, we might see--and hear --what all the shouting was about.

Dream on. For the next week, the official touring company of “Cats” offers an unhappy medium at the Terrace Theater. It’s a smaller “Cats” than the one we saw at the Shubert, yet it’s still in a giant-size space, with all of the attendant difficulties in hearing and seeing what’s going on.

The most obvious difference is the scaling back of John Napier’s set for touring purposes. His junkyard overflowed into the auditorium at the Shubert. Here, it doesn’t even fill the entire stage. Black curtains jut out from the wings. The set must have been built for smaller houses.

This didn’t prevent devoted “Cats” fans from lining up to explore the set at intermission, as they had been able to do at the Shubert. On Tuesday night in Long Beach, one intrepid woman got as far as Old Deuteronomy, who lingered briefly on stage after the house lights came up. Her example encouraged others to seek Deuteronomy’s autograph. But then stagehands appeared and directed the adventurous back to the audience. It was like a warning: Don’t get too close to this “Cats.”

A few strings of colored lights did extend beyond the fourth wall. But David Hersey’s light show didn’t look as rich as it had at the Shubert. The twinkling appeared thinned out--and, perhaps as a result, the brighter lights that flashed from the sidelines seemed somewhat harsher.

Those who ventured on stage got a close-up, however brief, of the designs on the floor. But from my sixth-row seat during the first act, I didn’t realize these designs existed. A sharper rake would have made them more visible. Only when I moved to the loge for the second act did I notice a pattern on the stage, but by then I was too far away to read it properly.

The details of the intricate cat makeup and costumes were also lost on those in the loge. But from my earlier vantage point, these cats looked as fascinating as always. And they certainly danced as well as the ones at the Shubert. At times, this “Cats” was reminiscent of a dance concert.

Perhaps that’s because I couldn’t make out at least half of the lyrics. The sound was the same in the loge as it was in the sixth row: lush but fuzzy. Some of the individual voices (Dan McCoy, Richard Nickol) were lovely, but the words in most of the choral passages (and there are plenty of choral passages in “Cats”) were lost.

Sound designer Martin Levan, touring director David Taylor and musical director David Caddick might want to consult. They also might want to advise Donna Lee Marshall, singing Grizabella, that she needn’t push quite so hard in her lower register.

But the problem may well be deeper than this production; words were muddy at the Shubert, too. If T. S. Eliot is your lyricist, you should make his verse understood, yet it’s a difficult challenge to guide such delicate whimsy through such a huge show. The bombast tends to drown out the nuances. Only when I read the lyrics inside the album did I begin to appreciate them--and someone who’s going to see “Cats” should probably take a look at the liner jacket beforehand.

Not that it will help you figure out the story. The story, such as it is, was never a spellbinder; in fact, it’s forgotten throughout much of the show. The magic was made by the mingling of special effects with the original concepts of Eliot, director Trevor Nunn and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. When the effects aren’t so special and Eliot’s contribution can’t be deciphered, the magic is missing.

Performances are at 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach, nightly through Sunday at 8 p.m., with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Tickets: $23.50-$32.50; (213) 480-3232 or (714) 740-2000.