Minor touch-ups, familiar formula make for major fun in 'Cats'
Asia tour of one of the longest-running Broadway musicals kicks off in Seoul
If you happen to walk around central Seoul late in the evening and come across seemingly-possessed chants of “Jellicles do and Jellicles can,” keep calm and carry on because the odds are that there are some people who had just caught the feline fever from the ever-infectious “Cats.”
One of the most beloved foreign-based musicals in the country opened last Tuesday at Haeoreum Theater of the National Theater of Korea to kick off the musical’s Asia tour for this year.
Vanity, felinity, flamboyancy bordering on insanity fills the revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber piece that has by now been enshrined in the minds of musical lovers as legend.
A scene from “Cats" (Clip Service) |
A scene from "Cats" (Clip Service) |
Little plays the Old Deuteronomy -- the ancient and wise leader of the Jellicle Cats gang that prowls and prances around the grungy old London junkyard.
It is the occupants of the battered and shabby streets that has undergone the touch-ups, through make-up and costumes. Grizzled face of once-beautiful Grizabella looks less aged but more scarred.
Playful magician of “Mr. Mistoffelees” is a lot more vocal then in the original version.
The changes also apply in the cats’ choreography.
What hasn’t changed is what made the “Cats” an unorthodox musical that keeps pricking the audience in an unexpected, but pleasant way.
A scene from "Cats" (Clip Service) |
After all, these are precisely what had made the originally 1981-produced show once hold the title longest-running Broadway musical in history with 7,485 performances -- a record now held by Lloyd
Webber’s other masterpiece “The Phantom of the Opera.”
It is not just the earworms that make up the show. Laura Emmet’s Grizabella wobbles onto the stage after all the cats have exited and starts reminiscing her past glories through “Memory.”
The fan-favorite number -- also the best known score of “Cats” in Korea -- is reprised several times as the show heads toward the finale in the second act. Audience are kept on their feet, as Jellicles venture on in the night of “Jellicle choice.”
A scene from "Cats" (Clip Service) |
“Cats” runs until Sept. 10 in Seoul, and the tickets range from 60,000 won to 150,000 won.
Performances will be held at 8 p.m. on Weekdays, 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Saturdays, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Sundays and holidays. The show lasts for two hours and 40 minutes, including the intermission.
By Yoon Min-sik (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)