Cats

When the girlies were 12 and 8, or there abouts, my friend, Teague, wanted to take them to the theater to celebrate birthdays. Teague's aunt introduced her to live theater when she was young, and she wanted to share the excitement with my girlies. I was invited to tag along.  After a few go arounds with what to see, we decided on Cats. Neither Teague nor I knew much about it, but from chatting up moms while waiting in the school parking lot, the consensus was the girlies would love it.

The production was at the North Shore Music Theater. It's a theater in the round, and in high school, I saw a fabulous production of MacBeth at this theater. Some of the actors sat in the audience and then jumped up with a "Here, my lord." and made a their stage entrance. Very exciting. I was sure this would be an equally spectacular production. We were excited. The house lights dimmed, went out, and then...

And then crushing, excruciating boredom for the entire first act. Now, I'm not a fan of musicals. Sorry. There are a few musicals, I like, but for the most part, I find them inane. Even if the musical has cowboys in it, I wince and grind my teeth. The costumes were interesting. The actors obviously spent time observing how cats move. (Though the cat actors can't hold a candle to the actors who played horses in a mesmerizing production of Equus I saw and was in, when I was in college. That's another story!) But there was nothing to the first act. No story. No plot. No hero, heroine, or villain. Just a ridiculous song from at T. S. Eliot poem (don't care for his stuff either) and cat actors strutting cat-like across the stage.

It was a relief when the house lights came up for intermission. The girls and Teague had hated the first act as much as I did. All around us, crowd comments were "Isn't this spectacular?" and "This is awesome." Teague and I just looked at each other with a what the hell look.

The second act was marginally better. At least there was a thin story thread to follow, but  our general consensus was Cats sux. There is a lesson good, or bad in every experience. Cats became our measuring gauge.  "Well, at least having root canal, wasn't as bad as Cats."

Have you seen Cats?