Reprogramming Directive

Cats is undeniably one of the all-time great 20th century musicals. Having run for a record breaking 21 years in London’s West End, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s translation of T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats book to stage theatre is a must-see show for any musical theatre nut worth their playbills. So I was very excited when I heard last June that Cats was coming to Sydney and promptly booked some tickets for a girls’ night out.

Fast forward 11 months and $131.50 AUD a piece later, all 5 of us were seated in Star City’s Lyric Theatre last Saturday night, looking down at a gorgeous, fantastical set:

My personal philosophy is a truly great musical should be able to stand on its own. The audience should be able to understand the characters and the story with just the music, lyrics, book, stage design, costumes and performers; without the need of any accompanying souvenir programs or other explanatory aids. I was also determined to have no expectations, since my aunt had warned me strongly of how she had been quite disappointed when she watched it many years ago, due to the show not quite living up to all the hype she had heard about it.

As a result, I went into Cats knowing virtually nothing about the show, except that it was an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about cats and it’s where the theatre standard Memory comes from. Through the years I’ve briefly heard bits and pieces, like the term “Jellicle” and the Jellicle theme, but nothing in detail. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a quick reminder. I’ll bet you most people in the world will recognise this song instantaneously.

The Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals I’m acquainted with to date are works like: The Phantom of the Opera; Jesus Christ Superstar; select songs from Sunset Boulevarde, Tell Me on a Sunday, Evita, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Musicals which are all very much through-composed with beautiful melodies, brilliant counterpoint and sweeping, dramatic scores. Musicals with unforgettable songs like Memory (think the title song from The Phantom Of The Opera, Any Dream Will Do, or Don’t Cry for Me Argentina). Even the rock musical Jesus Christ Superstar was quite true to strict harmony. As a result, I was quite surprised by the stylistic range of Cats.

Cats is very different from the other Lloyd Webber musicals I’ve seen to date. Being based on a T.S. Eliot collection of poems for children, it has a Seussical feel to it, full of wild imagination, and doesn’t really have a plot-focused story line. In fact, the story is almost a backdrop for character exploration, kind of like how A Chorus Line is about exploring the dancers rather than the show. Going into the musical and not knowing this bit of information made it really hard for me to understand what was going in the first half as character after character was introduced and I kept wondering when the plot would start moving forward.

Once I did figure it out, I was able to strop stressing and actually relaxed and enjoyed it. Cats is a really fun musical, full of humor and whimsy. My favourite numbers (other than Memory) have to be Mungojerrie And Rumpleteazer, a song about two mischievous cat burglars and Growltiger’s Last Stand, an old cat reliving the glory of his youth as a reknowned actor in his finest moments. And like A Chorus Line, Cats is a show where the choreography is the focus. Instead of showstopping song after showstopping song and despite being based on poetry, it’s full of wonderful instrumental music which really lets the audience concentrate on the incredible acrobatics being pulled off by the performers, sometimes while singing! Some of the cast members are literally singing while doing back flips and somersaults without their voice wavering the slightly bit. Truly. Amazing.

Musically, Cats is kind of all over the place and not the usual Lloyd Webber fare. It starts off and is interspersed with a cacophony of urban night life (complete with cars revving, screeching, sirens, etc) which seems to inevitably meld into a very distinctive Jellicle Cat theme, which appears throughout the show:

It also features songs like The Rum Tum Tugger which are very pop/rock, jazz numbers (Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer), hymns (Old Deuteronomy, The Addressing Of Cats), comedic theatrical ballads (Growltiger’s Last Stand) and light-hearted fun pieces like Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat:

The great highlight of the evening was watching Delia Hannah perform Memory as Grizabella. For that one moment in time, she made us feel Grizabella’s anguish and yearning and when she sang:

Touch me
It’s so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun
If you touch me
You’ll understand what happiness is

Look
A new day has begun
—Memory, from Cats

there was this physical, soundless, heart-stopping instant where the whole audience sat breathless as the full emotional impact of the song came crashing down on us. Absolutely. Incredible.

Overall, I had a lot of fun watching Cats. It’s not going into my list of all favourite musicals – the trifecta of Rent, Wicked and The Phantom of the Opera is hard to beat – but I definitely recommend watching it while it’s in town. It’s a great production and makes for a really fun night out!

This is a repost of an old blog entry I made during my stay in New York City as an exchange student to New York University at the beginning of 2008. That single semester was the most incredible four months and has changed my life more than I could possibly imagine.

Rent is a through-composed musical by Jonathan Larson. Based on Puccini’s La Bohème opera, it took Larson seven years to write and he tragically died the night before the off-Broadway premiere. Set in the early 1990s, Rent deals with a number of controversial issues of that decade, such as homosexuality and HIV/AIDS. It is the eighth longest running Broadway show and closed shortly after my stay in New York.

I grew up listening to the soundtrack of Rent on repeat. I knew all the songs by heart – and consequentially the story – before I ever saw the stage production. Rent is arguably my favourite musical of all time (Wicked and Phantom can give it a good run for its money) because I can identify with it so strongly and it strikes so many personal chords. I am so glad that Sony decided to preserve it forever in the Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway DVD and I strongly recommend you to watch it.

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Originally posted on Fri, 27 March 2009 at 08:44 while listening to “Without You” by the Original Broadway Cast, OST ‘Rent’ and feeling Reminiscent.

Now the rush of busy season is over and I’ve handed in my FIN109 EP, I’m finding more and more that I get home incredibly tired (thanks to a day of doing something I don’t enjoy), totally unable to study for FIN and instead thinking about how awesome my life was this time last year, because I was in New York.

So I figured, what the hell, it’s not like I’m doing anything else. I’m going to indulge and reminisce about how awesome New York was by writing up some waaaay overdue blog entries.

Jan 20, 2008: Times Square, 42nd Street and Rent

The words that come to mind when I think about Times Square will always have to be the immortal lyrics of “Broadway Baby” from Follies, all hopes and dreams, bright dazzling lights and marquees and music and life.

So where was our first stop in Times Square? Why, the M&M store of course! Apparently you can get custom M&Ms made with your name on them or whatever message you want. We walk in and we’re greeted with walls of brightly colored coordinated chocolate…

…and some very distinctive characters.

After we’d bought our front row mezzanine seats for only $54 a piece, Kat and I went to brave the hordes of crazy women mobbing the Victoria’s Secret store at Herald Square while Dewi and Amanda went in search of the best cheesecake, chocolate and pastry shops in New York City.

Australians think the Boxing Day Myers and David Jones sales are savage. They’ve got nothing on the Semi Annual Sale at Victoria’s Secret. The store was so packed there was hardly room to move, with clothing thrown over every available surface as women scrambled around in a frenzy to snatch every last bargain. The lines to go to the change rooms wound all around the second floor of the store and had a minimum wait time of 30 minutes. It was so crowded in there that Kat and I lost track of each other, which resulted in a very frantic couple of hours when Dewi, Amanda and I thought some horrible mishap might have befallen her and were unable reach her since her phone had died.

Anyway, after we grabbed some dinner, we headed out to the Nederlander Theatre at W 41st and 7th Ave. By this time it was freezing cold:

The stage design was stunning. There was this totally stark, utilitarian, industrial looking set, which was convincingly able to convey upstairs, downstairs, apartment, cafe, street, hospital, carpark and more, all in turn. Apart from moving around a few chairs and tables, there was very little moving around of major stage elements.

When the lights dimmed and the show started, I sat right on the edge of my seat and I didn’t move a muscle – didn’t breathe – until intermission. I don’t really have the words to describe how amazing it was. I grew up listening to the soundtrack of Rent, before I ever knew what the musical itself was about and I knew every song of the musical by heart. It was the first musical that I watched while I was in New York and it is a musical that is so intensely New York. It absolutely blew me away.

Laughs

Rent is one of those musicals that do the impossible and combine very serious themes and achingly sad moments and yet have parts which are just bursting with fun and energy and humour. I absolutely loved the voicemails, the “Tango Maureen”, that moment when Mark walks into “Life Support”, and the whole role of Angel. But the key moment that stood out for me was the juxtaposition of Roger’s soul searching (Adam Pascal) in “One Song Glory” which was abruptly interrupted by Mimi asking him to “Light My Candle” (Tamyra Gray). I have to say that Tamyra has been the most convincing Mimi who really took a very difficult role and made it her own.

Showstoppers

Big moments which stood out were “Rent”, the close of Act I with “La Vie Boheme” at the end of Act I, “Seasons of Love”, “Take Me or Leave Me” and “What You Own”. It probably seems very biased but again, Tamyra”s “Out Tonight” totally blew me away with how powerful and dynamic it was.

Tearjerkers

I’m the first to admit I’m a sucker for sappy moments in music/stories; books, movies, TV shows, concerts, Broadway musicals, it makes no difference. “I’ll Cover You (Reprise)”, “Goodbye Love”, the second half of “Finale” when Mimi is dying, “Your Eyes”, I cried in all of those songs. But it was “Without You” that struck the deepest chord.

I had incredibly high expectations for Rent and it surpassed all of them. It completely blew me out of the water. I. Love. Rent. No day but today.

This is a repost of an old blog entry I made during my stay in New York City as an exchange student to New York University at the beginning of 2008. That single semester was the most incredible four months and has changed my life more than I could possibly imagine.

The Phantom of the Opera is a through-composed stage musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, one of the great masters of twentieth century musical theatre, written for the one and only Sarah Brightman (his then-wife). It is one of the longest-running musicals in history, opening in the West End in 1986 and is still showing as of the date of writing this post. Phantom is one of the earliest musicals I was introduced to; I fell in love with it the first time I heard the music at age of 10 at a New Year’s Eve party held by a family friend.

I saw the 2004 film (also produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber) before I ever saw the stage musical and I loved it. This is my review of the stage production on Broadway.

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Originally posted on Thu, 28 February 2008 at 01:59 while listening to “The Phantom of the Opera”, OST ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ and feeling in love.

I love New York.

So I finished up my Corporate Finance case study and sat my Futures & Options mid-term and wondered what I was going to do with a whole evening of lovely free time. Then it hit me. Times Square is only a stone’s throw away. I ate an early dinner, scribbled down the addresses of about four different shows and headed out.

I originally meant to see something else, like Chicago or A Chorus Line, but Phantom was the closest theatre to the subway station and I couldn’t just walk past. I thought it would be less packed on a Wednesday night but incredibly the line of people wound all around the foyer, out the door and onto the sidewalk. I have loved Phantom for so long that I couldn’t resist. Didn’t get my beloved front and dead center mezzanine seats as I did for Rent, but I did get front and center rear mezzanine for $36 USD and it was pretty decent.

I got there at about 7:20 PM or so and there was already a huge line of people queuing up and people trying to sell souvenir programs for $10 each (I love Phantom, but not enough to pay $10 for a program). Doors opened at 7:30 PM sharp and I walked into this absolutely gorgeous theatre, all ornate woodwork with gold leaf, plush carpets and velvet, and chandeliers everywhere. Sadly my camera chose this moment to die so all subsequent pictures are from my phone.

The sets were absolutely fantastic and I wish I had photos. The whole sequence of “Little Lotte/The Mirror” into “I Remember…Stranger Than You Dreamt It” was done brilliantly, with Phantom leading Christine through a trapdoor in the stage then down a tilting walkway from side to side to make it seem like they descended into the bowels of the opera house. Then the lake scene, just wow, there was a lot of dry ice for mist on the lake and the boat and candles gliding around. Other memorable sets were the giant staircase for “Masquerade” which was so lavish and wonderfully done and the roof of the opera house for “All I Ask Of You”, oh and the “Hannibal” scene with the giant elephant!

They made really good use of stage space the whole time, there was a walkway on top of the stage where the Phantom cut down the chandelier, and it was connected to the gargoyle where he hid and did “All I Ask Of You (Reprise)”.

There’s a bunch of miscellaneous comments I had on other stuff about the staging. Costuming and lighting was great for the whole show. There was quite of bit of pyrotechnics used: explosions to signify the flashback in time at the beginning, when the Phantom appears/disappears, then Phantom throwing fireballs in the graveyard scene during “Wandering Child” and there was a point where there were massive gouts of flame going up on stage (I think during Don Juan Triumphant?). Totally. Awesome.

Musically I was so impressed by Howard McGillin. He makes a brilliant Phantom and his voice is so wonderfully expressive. If it were possible to fall in love with a voice, I would be so in love right now. He conveyed such depths of emotion in his singing and then he acted the part of a genius caught between sociopathic violence and a pitiful yearning for unrequited love so perfectly. *swoon* Loved him. Jennifer Hope Wills did pull off a great Christine, but I think my rather subdued praise is due to listening to Sarah Brightman on repeat.

Tim Martin Gleason as Raoul was…good but compared to Phantom and Christine, he just kind of paled beside them. His diction wasn’t as clean and crisp and his delivery didn’t pull on the heartstrings enough. He seemed to sing at two extremes a lot – he’s either “yelling” in a dynamically flat way or a very nice softer, more expressive sound. I wish he had more gradations in his performance, like the other two leads (the ranges in their voices are unbelievable). He’s supposed to be the understudy for Phantom; I’m not sure that would work out so good, just because his Raoul didn’t really grab me. Patricia Phillips did Carlotta very well too, but I kept thinking about Minnie Driver’s version in the film and felt it was a bit too similar and Minnie Driver’s version was stronger.

Final comments on musicality before I sleep – orchestra was really, really good. And diction overall was fantastic. You could hear every single consonant being clipped off and it was done so strongly and cleanly that it would echo a little around the theatre. Except for Gleason. He was kind of slack on a lot of his diction. Blah, and now this is ending on a down note. Well, when all is said and done, it was still a great show and I still loved it. But on an overall basis, I’d have to say Rent left a stronger impression on me. Soooo…I will blog about Rent (which I saw like a month ago)…soon!