Saw Cats. Walked Out at Intermission. Discover Why.

Today the wife and I saw a traveling company production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Cats, at the Hanover Theatre in Worcester. The Hanover is a lovely reclaimed theatre with great acoustics and it's ten minutes from our house. We're theatre subscribers so we attend at least five productions there every season.

Cats truly disappointed.

According to Wikipedia, Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. It introduced the song standard, 'Memory'.

The musical first opened in London in 1981 and then on Broadway in 1982, in each case directed by Trevor Nunn. It won numerous awards, including both the Laurence Olivier Award and the Tony Award for Best Musical. The London production ran for 21 years and the Broadway production for eighteen years, in both cases setting historical long-run records.

I don't understand Andrew Lloyd Webber's popularity. I found the music in Cats cacophonous, the dialogue stultifying, the lighting overbearing, and the costumes annoyingly 80s. The plot was shaky at best--a story loosely wrapped around synthesized music--and the music seemed forced and formulaic. In fact, the whole production seemed tired, lacking energy.

That could well be attributable to the company's thespians rather than the musical itself, which I saw several years on Broadway and didn't enjoy then, either.

I'm certainly not professionally qualified to critique the musical. And far be it from me to doubt Andrew Lloyd Webber's popularity. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in London's West End and on Broadway. He's composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass.

His honors include a knighthood in 1992 (followed by a peerage), seven Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, seven Olivier Awards, a Golden Globe, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2006.

More than likely, my own artistic preferences prevent me from appreciating Lloyd Webber's "music for the masses." When people go to the theatre, they're paying to be entertained. They wants flashing lights, fanciful costumes, lighthearted music and simple plots they can easily understand. That's why Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals like Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar (which I also did not like) and Phantom of the Opera are so successful.

As for me, I prefer my theatre more thought-provoking.