It’s Not Over, Alas; ‘Cats’ Has Many Lives Left

The longest-running show in Broadway history closes Sunday. Big news. The passing of a New York phenomenon--an era, even.

So why do I feel (a) vaguely guilty for feeling (b) like Diana Morales in “A Chorus Line” who, upon hearing Mr. Karp, her unpleasant acting teacher, had died, felt (c) nothing?

The show in question is “Cats.” The mass-market kitties-in-a-junkyard phenomenon comes from the pen of Andrew Lloyd Webber. The music accompanies lyrics derived mostly from the 1939 poems of T.S. Eliot, published under the title “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.”

Many, many hard-working and well-meaning adults made sure their children had the opportunity to see it. Many made sure “Cats” was, in fact, their first-ever Broadway show or touring Broadway export.

But in some of us, “Cats” never inspired much in the way of fondness or emotion. Its appeal may in fact exist outside emotion. It has more to do with other things. Things, meaning “stuff”: the imposing John Napier junkyard set, the “Flashdance” era leg warmers, the cats wearing them.

The reasons behind the two-decade run of “Cats” aren’t mysterious. Years before everyone started talking about the theme-park make-over of Broadway, “Cats” had already crept in and opened its hard-sell, two-act, all-ages theme-park attraction.

It is essentially plotless and therefore “easy.” (Cats hold annual ball; one gets to go to cat heaven at the end.) It presents no cultural barriers; international tourists take to it along with everyone else.

And this: “Cats” has cats, and lots of them, licking their costumes, running up the aisles, making sure you clap along with the clap-along audience-harassment segments.

No show ever had a higher “That’s just like my Fluffy!” factor.

Sunday’s finale will bring the musical’s Broadway performance total to 7,485. The show’s claim on the record books has been secure for three years: In June 1997, “Cats” surpassed “A Chorus Line” to snare the longest-runner title.

In London, where it premiered in 1981 (a year prior to Broadway), the musical will continue to purr and scratch and claw its way through reprises of “Memory.” It’s not as if the world will suddenly go “Cat”-less come Monday morning. You can rent the video version. You can wait for the PBS pledge drive airing of the version available on video. You can wait in the Kaiser Permanente waiting room of your choice, and eventually you will hear the Muzak version of “Memory.”

And as surely as the “Les Miserables” turntable will spin once again on tour, the big tire in “Cats” is destined to lift Grizabella to the heavens in triumphant return engagements all across North America. Give it a couple of years.

A triumphant return engagement will guarantee a new round of young theatergoers putting the heat on their elders to go, go, go--to be a part of the cat show that became a rite of passage for so many young ‘uns before them.

Plenty of kids and plenty of adults care not about the dated and grating elements of “Cats.” The synthesizer fills. The Gillian Lynne choreography, with all that aerobic pouncing.

The Lloyd Webber score? Even his devoted biographer, music critic Michael Walsh, admits: “The structure of ‘Cats,’ as it finally evolved, exists for only one reason: to plug ‘Memory,’ a song that is reprised three times before it is ever heard in full.”

Certain pop phenomena you care about; others, you care and you don’t care, in weird alternating currents. And with others still, you just sort of stare, the way Nipper the RCA dog stared at the Victrola emitting his master’s voice.

Its nine lives and 19 Broadway years notwithstanding, “Cats” is a Victrola.