Review: Does ‘Cats’ Have Nine Lives on Broadway? Two, Certainly

If I soon end up in a psychiatric ward, could someone please send the bill to Andrew Lloyd Webber?

It has been some four days since I saw the revival of Mr. Lloyd Webber’s nigh-legendary musical “Cats,” which opened on Sunday at the Neil Simon Theater. And it’s been four days of persistent earworms. The show’s electric opening song has been hounding me — no feline metaphor applying — when I wake in the morning, when I sit down at my computer, when I pick up a volume of Trollope, when I go to bed.

Because jellicles can and jellicles do
Jellicles do and jellicles can
Jellicles can and jellicles do
Jellicles do and jellicles can

Yeah, that one. I’m hoping this review provides an exorcism of sorts, and sorry if I just infected you. Where was I? Oh, yes, “Cats” — the new version. Which is a lot like the old one. The original production opened on Broadway in 1982, already riding a crest of hype from its success in London, and made history by going on to play for some 18 years. When it closed it had set a Broadway record at 7,485 performances — a record now held by Mr. Lloyd Webber’s other megahit, “The Phantom of the Opera,” with 11,864 and counting.

The overriding spirit of the revival appears to be the familiar motto: Don’t mess with success. Once again, the production is directed by Trevor Nunn, with sets and costumes by John Napier. Once again, a Broadway theater has been transformed into a grungy London junkyard, where trash piles up against the walls and spills out into the auditorium — albeit on a somewhat smaller scale. That levitating tire, as famous a set piece as a certain falling chandelier, presides once again at the back of the stage. (Apparently the license plate on the battered car, which reads “NAP 70,” is an in-joke indicating how many productions Mr. Napier has designed. Imagine how many leg warmers have been involved.)

A few tweaks have been made. Gone is the song featuring potentially offensive Asian accents of the Siamese cats. There is an audience-selfie bit when the cats slink through the aisles. The orchestra has been notably reduced in number. But this “Cats” is fundamentally the “Cats” you knew and loved when you were first bit by the musical-theater bug. Or it’s the “Cats” you knew and snickered at when you first encountered it. It is not a musical that inspires mild reactions. (I speak of my middle-aged generation. Two close friends told me, misty-eyed, that they could sing me the entire score. I declined the threat — I mean the offer. Others proffered condolences.)

The most significant nod to the intervening decades and changing tastes is the hiring of Andy Blankenbuehler — the Tony-winning choreographer of “Hamilton,” the newest now-and-forever musical (to borrow the marketing slogan from the first “Cats”) — to groom the original choreography by Gillian Lynne. Ms. Lynne gave an interview to the website and newspaper The Stage in which she said she felt positively murderous at this betrayal.

Note to Ms. Lynne: Mild battery would really be sufficient.

Although Mr. Blankenbuehler is officially credited as providing the dances “based on the original choreography by Gillian Lynne,” to these eyes much of Ms. Lynne’s movement remains intact, down to the precise details. It’s all still here: the lyrical steps from classical ballet, with knee-to-nose extensions; rump-twisting and hip-thrusting to suggest cats in heat; hands held in pawlike positions as the dancers prowl and crawl and leap in pseudo-feline poses.