Leona Lewis in Cats: Welcome Back to the Junkyard

Comparisons to the original long-running 1982 musical, Cats, will be inevitable, but even if you have never seen Cats before, as I have not, the revival of Cats at the Neil Simon Theater is simply splendid. I remember when it opened back in the day and so many viewers pondered, what’s the story? Just cats in radiant display, all kinds, cavorting on John Napier’s brilliant set, back alley debris in relief, and ensemble showstoppers and ballads, now part of the canonical Broadway songbook. But Andrew Lloyd Webber, who incidentally has three plays on Broadway—(Phantom of the Opera and School of Rock) as I write, with Trevor Nunn, who directed, managed to fashion a completely moving show from songs based on T. S. Eliot’s 1939 Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, creating a poet’s layered vision of mortality, transcendent and glorious.

Maybe today’s audiences will be more prepared for this stage show modernism, featuring stunning acts of dance—Andy Blankenbuehler has augmented Gillian Lynne’s original choreography-- with individuated cats: Old Deuteronomy, an elder states-cat, to Asparagus, the theater cat or drama queen, to Grizabella who sings the signature “Memory.” That is Leona Lewis, “a British singing sensation,” says the notes, a star of “The X Factor,” and a sensation she is. On the dance floor at the Gotham after party on opening night, Lewis said she’s having a blast: “What a great role, and a great company.”

Many of the talented cast said they were too young to have experienced Cats in any version but a tape. Jess LeProtto who performs as Mungojerrie with Shonnica Gooden as Rumpelteazer, an acrobatic number, said the most challenging part of his role was singing that song and dancing at the same time. Emily Tate who plays Tantomile said, “I saw it when I was little; Cats was my first show, so this is a dream come true.” Ken Page was the original Old Deuteronomy. For him, the new production is “a time trip."

Regina Weinreich

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