Why do you all hate Cats?

A LOT of people on this site get anxious and start to get crabby when a show fills a theatre for too long...CATS being the longest running show is the focus...a lot of people don't like Beauty and the Beast and Phantom for the same reasons.....But I say, give WICKED or RENT long enough, and people will hate them too...

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That it ran so damn long had nothing to do with my dislike of it. I hated it from the very beginning. I saw the show with the original cast and found it to be a shallow, superficial, trite and boring spectacle that I couldn't wait to leave -- and I was a kid at the time. Yes, the dancing was impressive, as were some of the design elements, but even then, as a teenager (who had seen several dozen Broadway shows since the age of 4 at that point) I felt is was all flash and style and no substance. It had all the meaning and depth of a theme park ride and the score was precious, derivative and corny. I didn't care about any of the characters or the "story," as it were. For me, it was all much ado about nothing.

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I think you are right that shows CAN be that way (not necessarily deep or having great substance), but that doesn't mean I, personally, will enjoy them at all.


That all depends on what each person wants out of a musical.

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Updated On: 11/22/05 at 12:10 AM

I find the show to be just ridiculous -I totally agree with Margo on this one; the show is superficial and I just saw no reason for me to be watching any of it. While I don't necessarily believe that every show has to be some sort of "deep examination" of something, I still feel like a show has to have some purpose, some reason why this writer felt like this play had to be written right now, some need to say something, and Cats does not fill that for me. Instead, I thought it was a snooze with silly cat costumes.

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double post, sorry

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Updated On: 11/22/05 at 12:17 AM

I, on the other hand, was always wowed how a group of poems put together for the stage could have so much success (I really can understand why so many producers thought it was a crazy idea).

There was more of an order than a story, and I find that they found a really creative way to make it work.
Of course it was a huge spectacle, but it was very well designed, and I found it jaw dropping.

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Give Wicked or Rent long enough? Rent has been open for only 2 years less than Beauty and the Beast. I was complaining about Beauty and the Beast long before 2 years ago. God help me if that show passes A Chorus Line.

I think Cats is just weird on so many levels. I actually do like the overture to the show and still listen to it from time to time. But once the cats open their mouths, it's too much. It was just a stretch to take a book of poems- that wasn't supposed to have a plot- then shoehorning some sort of a plot in there after the fact to sell it as a musical.

I think it's the Winter Garden. It has a weird aura to keeps attracting tourist audiences to shows that are trainwrecks.

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I like Cats...the show.

There are plenty of shows that I would call "light entertainment" that I've loved over the years. But they all had characters I cared about, a score that didn't veer from bad vaudeville to nursery rhyme drivel to 3rd rate Puccini, and had some semblance of a story that I found interesting. Who was going to get to kitty heaven is not a story I cared about, even as a kid. I've even loved plotless revues such as "Ain't Misbehavin" and "Side By Side By Sondheim" where in the place of story, you had fun songs with clever lyrics (that told a story) and performers I was intrigued and entertained by. There was something on stage that I could identify with or care about.

I just couldn't summon any interest in Rumpleteezer or Skimbleshanks and any of the other oddly named creatures covered in yak hair. The whole experience was monotonous with solo after solo of annoying whimsical little tales I just could care less about and the music all sounded like stuff I'd heard before elsewhere. I liked some the dancing and the performers were quite good, but it wasn't enough to sustain my interest. I was bored and looking back it was one of the worst shows I can recall seeing duing my childhood and adolescence.

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Updated On: 11/22/05 at 12:25 AM

The story is very deep and if you take the time to analize it you will find many diferent layers of the story. Just give it a chance.

Uh...I don't think I said that anywhere...I'm saying that what you consider to be "light comedic entertainment" isn't really just that. You seem to think all the shows before 1950's were written just for fun, but that's not true.

Cats is just not compelling to me. And neither is 42nd street. There is a lot of musical theatre out there -even comedies, gasp- that are a lot more entertaining and a lot more interesting.

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You look at a lot of theater before the 50's and you see some serious works, but a lot more light comedic stuff. I believe I read that Hammerstein once told a young Sondheim that he didn't think there was any point in making a musical more serious. To him, it was all about giving the audience a good time, and that serious emotional engagment should take a backseat to just having a good time. If you look at many of the hits from back then, they fall in line with this philosophy. Oklahoma was a lot darker when it first came out then when Trevor Nunn revived it. I remember people being suprised by how dark it was during the London revival 8 years ago.

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