#Aaron Albano showed him tossing it in the garbage on his Instagram. Make of that what you will.

[the-cat-at-the-theatre-door]

I'm new to the CATS fandom and I'm confused? Why isn't anyone allowed to like the Broadway revival? Is it problematic?

Hi anon, welcome to the fandom.

I'm going to gently correct your use of "allowed" here, because I don't want you to get the wrong idea. You are "allowed" to like/enjoy/connect to whatever production of CATS you want (there are literally dozens to choose from). There is no rule indicating that you can't like the Broadway revival; there are a lot of people who *love* the Broadway revival and proceeding tours. Some people were even introduced to CATS through the revival. And that's great! This isn't a place to judge based on which CATS production you happen to like (nor would I ever do that).

For me personally, and I can only speak for myself and have spoken about this many times before, the Broadway revival is a series of poorly thought out, uneven and last minute rush decisions cobbled together with masking tape, and a further push towards the uniformity and "sanitization" (in the sense of making it, as Jacob Brent put it, less dangerous in terms of it being explicitly weird and out of the box - not in rightfully changing things that were offensive and/or outdated) of CATS that it didn't need. It's a production that was weighed down by a *very* hefty legacy (regardless of what anyone says or any critical opinion, CATS literally changed Broadway and musical theatre forever - that joke about CATS having walked so Phantom and Hamilton could run? Not an exaggeration.), that tried to be so different from its predecessor to alleviate some of that pressure, and in turn shove so much....*stuff* into it's runtime that it shot itself in the foot. It eliminated a lot of that organic improv and difference that CATS is known for and instead opted to choreograph every moment, leaving no room for its performers to breathe or characterize themselves. And the production team is at fault for this. 

Common complaints lie in that it was, for the most part, change for the sake of change. A very "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" type of situation. And I’m not going to stand here and say that change or “freshening up” isn’t good - but I will say that when changes are being made, we need to ask *why* they are being made and whether or not that why actually constitutes changing something.  It completely scrapped Broadway's different, detailed and grungier designs for dramatically simplified and watered down London designs instead, with a massive fear of non-human eyebrows for some reason (and bringing some of that good old “Why cat woman not sexy though? Not sexy with stripes and blush and dots on face - only lipstick” back from across the pond). Why? Just because (also I'm guessing something to do with Candace Carell but I'm not knowledgeable enough about that to speculate - it's also cheaper across the board to standardize replicas and take shortcuts with costumes, and you know RUG and co. will take any and all opportunity to maximize profit).

The cast were insanely talented people, but the production team didn't exactly do them any favors. Makeup application training was drastically shortened. The usual cat and improv school was drastically shortened. Rehearsal time was drastically shortened and disorganized. Numbers were being scrapped and re-re-done and pushed off and put in and taken out and put in again, literally right up until opening week. Not for a fledgling production mind you- for a show that had been running continuously *without a hitch* all over the world for 35 years.

From a purely petty perspective, the revival also last minute screwed Gillian Lynne out of something she created from scratch. And I'm not saying Lynne's choreo is sacred, nor should it never be changed. I'm saying they pushed her out of something they promised her after the London revival (where she had already made choreo changes herself) and gave it to Hamilton's choreographer purely because Hamilton was popular at the time and they could slap his name on it to drum up publicity. That's literally it. While Blankenbuehler is talented, he didn’t really have any experience with full dance productions of this caliber prior to CATS and, honestly, it shows. I would go so far as to venture that he would not have been hired were Hamilton not such a huge hit. And honestly I *understand* Lynne having been hurt by that, and while her approach to the press was a little shady, they did cut her out of something that she poured literally her whole heart into for publicity’s sake. That leaves a very sour taste in my mouth. 

It also kept a racist line after making a big deal out of removing Growltiger because of its racism, and played it off as an "only old people are racist" joke. Which is, apologies, absolutely inane. I cannot even begin to fathom who thought that was a good idea and for what reason. 

Does the revival have it’s good points? Yes absolutely. Was the cast talented? Yes. Are a lot of the changes they made completely unnecessary and come at the detriment of the show’s experience? Yes. Do I think the show suffered under its own legacy and their desperate attempts to differentiate? Yes. Does this bleed into the new US Tour? Yes even more so - Troika took the streamline and streamlined it even further, as they are wont to do to save money. Does any of this mean you shouldn’t like the revival? No, absolutely not. I honestly think there was no going about the revival in a way that would satisfy everyone - the point of a revival is to attract old fans while also coaxing new fans into purchasing tickets to maximize attendance. There was always going to be something about the show that was alienating to one or the other group. I think there are things we can appreciate about the revival, and things that perhaps we can improve on. 

All in all, the Broadway Revival is a matter of personal preference. If you like it, fantastic. If you don’t, that’s fine, too. We can like things and be open to fair critique of them, and we can dislike things without raining on other people’s parades. Simple as that.