Now and forever

It’s always fun to go to public events with Megan. In addition to the pleasure of her company, I get all these approving smiles from women of a certain age. No doubt they’re thinking: isn’t that sweet, that nice man is taking his granddaughter out for some very improving culture.

Last night’s event was Cats. Yes, THAT Cats, the Andrew Lloyd Webber juggernaut currently playing at the Keller Auditorium as the Portland stop in a national tour. Though the spectacle premiered in 1981, I never saw it back in the day, because there were no comps whatsoever to be had. (In my student days, I saw only the second acts of Broadway shows anyway, and Cats just didn’t tickle my spider sense.) So I was grateful for the opportunity to see what nearly 30 years of fuss has been about.

Well. Talk about truth in advertising. The play is about cats. Probably you already know this is all based on a book of light verse by T.S. Eliot, of all people: Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, from 1939. (Intriguingly, however, the one song you can actually hum, Memory, hails from Tom’s groovier, more avant-garde phase.) None of it makes a lick of sense, really, but it’s all very colorful, and the talented touring cast dances their tails off. (Ahem.)



The video posted above is not of the current national tour, but this is exactly what last night looked like; apparently all the production elements are codified. Never mind that the dance vocabulary and Webber’s hodgepodge of a score are shopworn (the synth-heavy arrangements recall MTV of yore), the thing is an event. The gleeful opening night audience include a startling number of people (and I’m talking adults here) with velvet cat’s ears on their heads and/or sporting puss print outfits. Impressive!

Cats is probably not a show for jaded theater lifers like myself; I can’t help but see through the tricks and even be a tad irked by the staginess of it all. But for those who still thrill at pulsing strobe lights shone in their faces or for whom lots and lots of makeup hold a forbidden fascination, the show may be magic. Certainly last night’s audience enjoyed the play thoroughly.

Know what else I’ve never seen? Les Miz and Miss Saigon. I’m counting on the Keller’s Broadway series to also fill in these lacunae in my theater education, tool. Where was I, anyway, during the waning years of the Broadway musical? It feels like I skipped from Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar straight over to In the Heights and Passing Strange. Feel free to tell me what I missed.

Totally blonditudinous

Strange but true: there are some narratives that improve upon their transformed into wholesome musicals. The doleful story of the Van Trapp Family Singers, for one, in which a plucky brood sings its way past the Nazis. (Just don’t ask what happened after that.)

Broadway’s been making the most of this recently, as the Keller’s “Broadway Across America” season demonstrates; its previous offering was Xanadu, lovingly cherished by some as one of the worst musicals ever created for film. And now Legally Blonde the Musical, based on a movie that a lot of people genuinely enjoyed, which in turn was based on a book (who knew?) by Amanda Brown that was also popular. Yet its reaches its apotheosis in the musical version. How come?

There’s something about people breaking into song when their hearts are full that is -- well, if not “realistic,” then true to our experience. Ever walk down a city street when you’re crazy for love? It feels like your happiness radiates from you like a supernova, so bright you feel sure everyone walking by you can you’re love’s fool. You’d sing, too, if you didn’t think they’d drag you into the drunk tank for it.

Legally Blonde communicates some of this -- what Joni Mitchell called “the dizzy, dancing way you feel.” Sure, it’s fizzy, but the first scene promises to deliver on its promise that all will work out, and it does. We all see from the very first scene that the megablonde Elle Woods (named for the magazine, but of course) is better than the stereotypes she accepts for herself. And we see she’s too good for the erstwhile boyfriend she chases to Harvard Law School. We know what’s going to happen, but now how -- that’s the fun of the show.

Amusingly and knowingly, the musical trades on multiple stereotypes that its characters goes on to transcend: a silly gay boy, a graceless lesbian, a musclebound delivery dude … even a waspy ice princess is redeemed by the end, with only the truly heartless left out of the family circle.

At left are a few of the show’s smaller stars -- all of them rescue dogs, by the way, which seems consonant with the show’s redemptive theme. It all adds up to the surprising conclusion-- surprising to me, anyway -- that this is one Broadway musical that’s actually worth your while (you’ve got through Sunday to see it). Admittedly, it won’t make you long for law school, but you will feel that you don’t have to chased out of Austria to merit the love of your peeps.