STAGE REVIEW : Shubert’s Third ‘Cats’ Rivals First

While watching “Cats,” in its third visit to the Shubert Theatre (and its 11th to the L.A. area), the thought occurred that it was Andrew Lloyd Webber who wrote this year’s campaign music for the Tory Party--which beat the Labor Party even without Margaret Thatcher. Lloyd Webber’s epic musical of “felininity,” inspired by T.S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” is the apotheosis of the no-holds-barred spectacle style of the Thatcher-Reagan era.

As if to mitigate the sense that money is no object, “Cats” is set in a junk-filled alleyway, home of the homeless cat. So liberals and Tories can both enjoy--part of the secret of this show’s continuing success.

But while it’s hard to imagine such a monster production as Trevor Nunn’s original (which was hugely abetted by John Napier’s set, reproduced here by Raymond Huessy) getting off the ground in these recession-clogged days, David Taylor’s staging for the fourth national touring company is no on-the-cheap affair.

In fact, it’s incredibly close to the first Shubert company in 1985. There’s nothing to be done about Gillian Lynne’s banal choreography, but this is a very tight unit under the helm of T. Michael Reed and Richard Stafford. Almost every star turn--as each cat struts its best stuff to impress patriarchal Old Deuteronomy (a full-throated Robert DuSold) before he decides which one will get a new life at dawn--sends out a lot of power, or sentiment, as the song requires.

James Hindman has tons of fun as plump Bustopher Jones, old reminiscing Gus, and (spectacularly) as opera tenor Growltiger. (It’s easy to see here the beginnings of Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera,” though “Cats” remains a far more original show.) Natalie Toro’s Grizabella is affecting but not tear-jerking during “Memory.” David Hibbard’s Rum Tum Tugger feverishly rocks ‘n’ rolls, Dennis Glasscock and Lori Lynch are simply cute as Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, while John Joseph Festa’s Mr. Mistoffolees and Jim T. Ruttman’s Macavity make the night sinister and mysterious.

* “Cats,” Shubert Theatre, 2020 Avenue of the Stars, Century City. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Ends Oct . 4. $30-$50; (800) 233-3123. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.