On June 19, 1997, Cats becomes one for the history books -- and you remember how dull history books were. Up and down Shubert Alley, theater in-crowds were gnashing their teeth as Cats surpassed the beloved Chorus Line to become the longest running Broadway show in history (6,138 performances). A third look at the feline phenomenon showed Cats to be what it's always been: incredibly innovative in costume and design, surprisingly successful in theatricalizing an impossible concept (shaping a commercial musical out of T.S. Eliot poems), and tedious, repetitious and numbing as an evening at the theater. It's nothing but exposition in song, each cat introducing itself or being introduced by the others.
No fool he, creator/composer Andrew Lloyd Webber puts two verses of "Memory" at the end of act one, just to keep everyone's hopes up. David Hibbard's fun Rum Tum Tugger is a growling Tom Jones-tomcat, very much of the Terrence Mann school. He's fun to watch, though sometimes too low to hear. Chop a full hour out of this nearly three-hour meow mix, and you might just have a neat concept musical for all ages. But even as history, Webber's musical, now and forever, offers more kitty litter than catnip.
