Product Description

A completely new experience! It's Cats as you've never seen it before. Catch this exhilarating experience on video. The musical that is known all over the world will captivate you like never before.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1622 in DVD
• Brand: Universal Studios
• Released on: 2000-09-12
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 120 minutes

Amazon.com
This pop-cultural phenomenon has been performed on stage for more than 50 million patrons in 26 countries for almost 18 years, churning more than $2 billion in ticket sales. Now that Cats has finally made it to the small screen, attention must be paid not just by fans of this critic-proof show, but also by those entertainment mavens who have somehow avoided Cats until now. The video version has been restaged but, alas, not really reconceived for its new medium.

The video cast, assembled from London, Amsterdam, and New York productions, is competent. Ken Page as Old Deuteronomy, Jacob Brent as Mr. Mistoffelees, and Elaine Paige--the original London Grizabella, the Glamour Cat well past her prime--are a great deal more than that. Paige has toned down her theatrical belting of her big number, "Memory," and allowed the faded ruin of her character's soul to prevail in close-up. For all the "covers" of her signature song, Paige's version remains definitive. The video is, by definition, more intimate, not always a good thing: costumes are even more Halloweeny in garish close-up, the cats less cuddly without that all-important interaction, the stage's appropriately midnight lighting transmuted to a Las Vegas neon. And the chorus of cats in production numbers is even clunkier and more amorphous in two- and three-shots.

The one complete newcomer to the cast is the 90-year-old icon among English actors John Mills, a delight as Gus the Theatrical Cat. Sir John and his character show the youngsters how it's done in close-up, largely behind the eyes, abetted by a heart-tugging delivery of his one song. Yet virtually all of the songs are lip-synched, further robbing the video Cats of its onstage seeming spontaneity. It's clearer than ever that Lloyd Webber's music is mostly twaddle, with the important exception of "Memory," which instantly and rightly became one of the genuine theater standards not dependent on context, in the vein of Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns." On the plus side, most of the Cats characters and lyrics, from T.S. Eliot's 14-poem Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, are far better defined and understood from the video version. --Robert Windeler

DVD features
The 30-minute documentary "What's a Jellicle Cat? The Making of Cats the Video" provides a backstage look at the video version of the longest-running show in Broadway history. After a brief discussion of the original show's start in 1981, the bulk of the time is spent on the creation of the video and the advantages it had over a stage production--a larger orchestra, clearer lyrics, and close-ups for better story-telling. There's plenty of rehearsal footage, plus comments by Lloyd Webber, director-choreographer Gillian Lynne, Elaine Paige (Grizabella), and other cast members. Of course "Memory" is discussed, and an excerpt of it played by the orchestra without vocals is positively gorgeous. --David Horiuchi