©InTheatre Magazine


Now and Forever
(On Video)
By Kathy Henderson

Wonder why Cats has taken in $2 billion at the world's
box offices and become Broadway’s longest-running
musical? The show’s strengths - catchy songs, clever
costumes, and a multi-generational appeal - have been
captured in a new 115-minute video produced under the
personal supervision of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Released
on Oct. 27 by PolyGram Video ($24.95), Cats will be
broadcast on PBS’ Great Performances on Nov. 2.

“We tried to cast each part globally with the best
possible person who had played it - the cream of the
Cats,” says David Mallet, who directed the video in an
18-day shoot on a custom-designed set at London’s
Adelphi Theater. Original Grizabella Elaine Paige was
joined by Americans Ken Page (Old Deuteronomy) and
Michael Gruber (Munkustrap), plus 90-year-old theater
legend Sir John Mills as Gus the Theatre Cat. “The
chorus kids were sitting around for an entire day in
floods of tears watching Sir John,” says Mallet, “not
out of sympathy but because he was so good.”

The video was filmed with no audience present, a smart
move Mallet credits to Lloyd Webber. “We set up individual
shots, very much in the way they made Hollywood musicals
in the ’50s,” the director says. “Instead of looking in on
an audience show, the viewer is part of the cats’ world.”


main Cats on Video page