A worldwide success
When the musical Cats was created in 1981 in London, nobody believes in this strange story, taken from a book of poems by the English writer TS Eliot ” The cats of the old guide Opossum. ” A tale featuring cats that end up in a landfill for their annual ball … and to find a new elected their tribe Jellicles.
However, with the public, the musical please, seduced, a hit. Cats settled with the poster … for nineteen years, a whopping almost 9000 performances. In New York, on Broadway, it is also a triumph with some 7500 performances.
To date, Cats is the most seen musical in the world with 73 million viewers. The play has been translated into fifteen languages and performed in over 300 cities. Shown for the first time in Paris, in French, in 1989, it is now resumed at the Mogador theater.
The setting
In this theater of the 9 th district of Paris, the producer Training has made a specialty of the adaptation of French musicals (Cabaret, The Lion King, Mamma Mia!), for which he won four Molières. If placement is distinct from producers of French musicals, it is through art direction directly inspired by the Anglo-Saxon rigor.
Cats shows a setting of odds and ends, a pile of scrap metal and waste on stage and up to the balcony. A setting that seems to shrink the busy scene, however, for the vast majority of half past two the show (with intermission) by a score of tomcats unleashed. Basically, emerge the stars and moon.
To move to the best cats in … the actors are wearing pantyhose and tight tops. Some have their particularity: black and Gothic is the sad Grizabella; Old Deuteronomy is imposing; Rum Tum Tugger appears trendy and Bustopher Jones grotesque … The makeup, very neat, draw the personalities of each of the cats.
The Review
One enters Cats like roller coasters, at full speed. It sings, it dances, it’s short, it is agitated, in perfectly oiled choreography. Suddenly, the night sky is torn. Rum Tum Tugger, rapper and mischievous cat enters the dance. All is not well. Old Deuteronomy has to choose an elected official. Grizabella, star cats, is mistreated …
If at the beginning, we all understand fencing of a sometimes verbose text, you have to let go to go with the various tables, energetic choreography and quieter moments. Cats is a whirlwind, a sarabande songs and dances with artists who also show in actors. All this with apparent ease.
It becomes downright magical when the Cats pick up the décor elements to manufacture, in seconds, a passing locomotive spewing smoke … Forte has also the way of Grizabella reborn singing in French, so almost heartbreaking, the musical theme of the room, the famous “Memory”, immortalized by Barbara Streisand.
The performance of the new troop Cats is powerful enough to snap the public, carrying his world to pay him child smiles … This version of Cats, sweet euphoric, almost left groggy by its abundance of images, songs and movements. A performance. And a very beautiful show.
At Mogador Theatre in Paris. From € 25. Reservations: stage-entertainement.fr or 01 53 33 45 30
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