CATS: THE JELLICLE BALL Reviews- Page 5

[PipingHotPiccolo]

Posted: 5/3/26 at 10:06pm

i was there today.

ive never been so Of Two Minds re a show. this isnt for me. it felt very long. they make an announcement about traditional broadway folks who dont like people screaming and talking throughout the show--thats me. im just not the audience for this, and i knew it going in, and thats how it played out. I have never seen any iteration of CATS because it always struck me as so incredibly stupid, and i was right. the content here is just....bad (memory is a nice song, i guess theres some hummable stuff here and there but its about literally nothing). 

AND YET, how does this not win Best Revival? They took a horrible cheesy borderline insane story and turned it into something new, fresh--its brilliant. The ball culture fits perfectly, and it elevates otherwise painful material. And the sheer joy of the performers and the audience--it reminded me of Buena Vista Social Club, or how Fiddler must have felt when it premiered so soon after WW2. A culture/community just bursting onto the stage, so talented and so proud. What a feat.

The ensemble/group was outstanding but no one stood out in terms of performance (dancing aside--the physical movement was unreal). I thought Nora Schell and Sydney James Harcourt commanded the room most powerfully. 

Lots of empy seats in rear orchestra and more than a few people disappeared during intermission. Wonder how this plays out once the core audience for it has seen it. But man are these guys working hard and earning the wild applause.

[ScottK]

Posted: 5/4/26 at 12:50am

Ummm...PipingHot.....Fiddler opened almost TWENTY YEARS AFTER the end of WW2

[blaxx]

Posted: 5/4/26 at 12:58am

PipingHotPiccolo said: "i was there today.

ive never been so Of Two Minds re a show. this isnt for me. it felt very long. they make an announcement about traditional broadway folks who dont like people screaming and talking throughout the show--thats me. im just not the audience for this, and i knew it going in, and thats how it played out. I have never seen any iteration of CATS because it always struck me as so incredibly stupid, and i was right. the content here is just....bad (memory is a nice song, i guess theres some hummable stuff here and there but its about literally nothing).

AND YET, how does this not win Best Revival? They took a horrible cheesy borderline insane story and turned it into something new, fresh--its brilliant. The ball culture fits perfectly, and it elevates otherwise painful material. And the sheer joy of the performers and the audience--it reminded me of Buena Vista Social Club, or how Fiddler must have felt when it premiered so soon after WW2. A culture/community just bursting onto the stage, so talented and so proud. What a feat.

The ensemble/group was outstanding but no one stood out in terms of performance (dancing aside--the physical movement was unreal). I thought Nora Schell and Sydney James Harcourt commanded the room most powerfully.

Lots of empy seats in rear orchestra and more than a few people disappeared during intermission. Wonder how this plays out once the core audience for it has seen it. But man are these guys working hard and earning the wild applause."

I still don't get why people want a group of poems set to music, a cantata, to have a "story".  

The only insane / ignorants are the ones always wanting a story out of everything. Shows how far the art form still needs to go with more sophisticated approaches to the performing arts.

[PipingHotPiccolo]

Posted: 5/4/26 at 3:24am

im sorry I hurt blaxx's feelings with my wildly "insane/ignorant" take that.....CATS is pretty horrible, but yes, guilty as charged. If youve got no story to propel something fwd AND the songs/artistry is lacking, you've got nothing to write home about. i am pretty sure this is almost exactly what the critical reaction to CATS has been for roughly 40 yrs, but, again, not liking CATS is now unacceptable (even as I praise this production's ingenuity), so I truly do apologize.

and yeah, less than 20 years after the Holocaust, a musical celebration of Jewish culture exploded on the stage. i imagine it was quite a welcome catharsis for many theatergoers at the time, which is the comparison i am drawing to a piece that celebrates Cuban or ballroom or any other less-represented culture. 

[blaxx]

Posted: 5/4/26 at 5:23am

PipingHotPiccolo said: "im sorry I hurt blaxx's feelings with my wildly "insane/ignorant" take that.....CATS is pretty horrible, but yes, guilty as charged. If youve got no story to propel something fwd AND the songs/artistry is lacking, you've got nothing to write home about. i am pretty sure this is almost exactly what the critical reaction to CATS has been for roughly 40 yrs, but, again, not liking CATS is now unacceptable (even as I praise this production's ingenuity), so I truly do apologize.

and yeah, less than 20 years after the Holocaust, a musical celebration of Jewish culture exploded on the stage. i imagine it was quite a welcome catharsis for many theatergoers at the time, which is the comparison i am drawing to a piece that celebrates Cuban or ballroom or any other less-represented culture."

Still no point, the original won the Tony for Best Musical and ran for almost two decades. Not bad for pretty horrible.

[quizking101]

Posted: 5/4/26 at 7:55am

PipingHotPiccolo said: "im sorry I hurt blaxx's feelings with my wildly "insane/ignorant" take that.....CATS is pretty horrible, but yes, guilty as charged. If youve got no story to propel something fwd AND the songs/artistry is lacking, you've got nothing to write home about. i am pretty sure this is almost exactly what the critical reaction to CATS has been for roughly 40 yrs, but, again, not liking CATS is now unacceptable (even as I praise this production's ingenuity), so I truly do apologize.

and yeah, less than 20 years after the Holocaust, a musical celebration of Jewish culture exploded on the stage. i imagine it was quite a welcome catharsis for many theatergoers at the time, which is the comparison i am drawing to a piece that celebrates Cuban or ballroom or any other less-represented culture."

I’m actually with you on this (despite our experiences being very different, as I’ve become a major fan). I was one of those people who LOATHED Cats having only seen the two filmed versions. It made no sense to me and to take as long as it did to resolve was vexing. What Zhailon and Bill did here in their reimagining was look for the central themes and weave them through the lens of an underground culture that was historically maligned by society, which created an actual throughline that otherwise didn’t exist before.

Even some of the cast members were skeptical. Ken Ard (the original Macavity, now DJ Griddlebone) said in the extended cut of the CBS Sunday Morning interview that the 2016 revival was “a museum piece” and that when he was invited to see it off Broadway, he was “what could they possibly do with CATS”? And he was moved by it and seized the opportunity to join the cast when it came along

[PipingHotPiccolo]

Posted: 5/4/26 at 9:50am

Yeah, I think I made it pretty clear how impressed I am with the production DESPITE the inherent flaws of the material, so we are left with someone rattled by the notion that CATS is trash, which I genuinely thought was an accepted fact many decades ago. To each their own, I'm not mad at anyone for liking it, and wish the best to those upset with those of us who don't. 

(and i checked- my point about there being zero story and not much else to back it up music wise is exactly what the NYT wrote at the time- im not saying anything new here but that should be obvious to most).