Demeter & Bombalurina from the NZ production of Cats. Photo / Supplied
Walking through the cavernous Ministry of Dance building in North Melbourne, large rehearsal rooms to the left and right are filled with dancers of all different levels and styles working on routines.
Down one end, past a lounge and tea break area, one room is blacked out with heavy curtains, but peaking through a crack it becomes quickly evident that it's the cast of the new production of Cats in rehearsal. They're all dressed in regular dance outfits - leggings, T-shirts, anything comfortable - but each of them is also wearing a long, willowy, feline tail curling around their legs and attached to their tail bone by a belt. Several of them are wearing knee-pads to alleviate the wear and tear that comes with spending a lot of time crawling on the floor and landing on all fours.
Despite their very human attire, once they begin to dance that all melts into the background and all you see is a remarkably animal ensemble pouncing, prowling and rubbing up against each other.
We're soon ushered into the studio and, watching them in close proximity, it becomes crystal clear just how physical this musical is - they're all knackered by the time they finish the opening number. It's an all-dancing, all-singing cast, and they're flying and leaping, twisting and turning, never letting up with their full-bodied impression of a cat, all the while singing in harmony with 30 others.
Despite the tiring nature of their work, the cast seem elated when they finish the rehearsal.
Catching her breath, Stephanie Silcock, who plays young kitten Jemima, explains why.
"It's amazing. It's almost like a love/hate thing. You work so hard physically throughout the show - from the start to the finish you're crawling around, and you don't just get to be like a human and stand on your feet and lean against a wall, or sit on a chair, you're on four paws all the time. But by the time you get to the end of the show, it's also the best feeling ever because you know you've given everything, and so the adrenalin and the joy every night is quite amazing."
This is Silcock's second season of Cats -- she started working on the production in 2007, playing Victoria (the white cat) as they toured Asia, but she's still not sick of it.
"It's such a classic, it's so well known, so iconic, and to be in it was a dream come true. And Jemima has always been one of my favourite parts, so it's a really lovely full circle to come back and play her."
Each cat has three adjectives attached to their character, to help inform their improvisation and all those subtle movements that go beyond the choreography -- Jemima's are yearning, dreamy, and curious.
"The yearning comes in if the Rum Tum Tugger is around - as a kitten I just think he's the best, I want to be right up there next to him in the front seat. But then when Grizabella comes, I also have some internal connection and yearning drawing me to her, and I'm curious too, so that can often make me a little bit cheeky, a little Stephanie Silcock (Jemima), Sophia Ragavelas (Grizabella), and Daniel Assetta (the Rum Tum Tugger).
bit mischievous. I'm definitely always curious about what the male cats are up to and the older cats have to keep me in line."
There's very little speaking in Cats so they communicate their cat personalities with their whole bodies - every pounce, every flick of the wrist or raised cheekbone must not only be cat-like, but tell the story of their particular cat.
Rising young star Daniel Assetta plays the Rum Tum Tugger and he's found an extra layer of difficulty in maintaining his feline body language while also transforming Tugger from the swaggering rock star he was in the original production to the young hip hop cat he is in this updated version.
"It's been tricky, taking on this new hip hop Rum Tum Tugger, this street cat, and doing it in a feline way. Even though I've done hip hop my whole life, I keep having to double check myself in the mirror and think about how a cat would do a particular step, and still maintain the hip-hop aspect. You can't for one minute ever just thinking, 'Oh I'm dancing', because you're always a cat that's dancing."
Assetta likens the style of the old Rum Tum Tugger to Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones -- he was an impetuous kind of rock star, with a focus on the hips. Now Andrew Lloyd Webber has decided to update the character and re-write his signature song to become a rap. So who is Assetta's reference this time?
"I've drawn from a few places for inspiration. I think he's definitely the age and vibe of someone like Justin Bieber, maybe a sort of Chris Brown, Nick Jonas kind of thing. He's a very street, urban kind of cat, and he's a bit of a bad boy, but not too much."
The transformation is complete with a new costume design - he remains a tiger-like tomcat, but instead of a shaggy mane, he's wearing a cap backwards with his ears poking through and a couple of chains round his neck.
"He's unlike any other cat in the tribe," Assetta laughs. "He's this little rebellious cat, that kind of wants to steal the attention most of the time, and so he'll come in and he'll create a stir, a bit of a party, that's basically what he's about. And a lot of the little kittens love Tugger and he loves that attention -- he's a lady's cat."
While Tugger might be a whole new role, Grizabella remains as iconic as ever -- the aging, faded glamour cat, with a cloak of straggling furry woollen grey, a long bushy tail and a pair of heels. She's a slightly worn down version of her former self but still full of pride and determination.
She'll be played in New Zealand by British singer Sophia Ragavelas, who played the role in the UK revival tour last year, and then shared the role at the Palladium with ex-Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger.
"I watched the show as a little girl, and loved it, I wanted to leap up on stage and be with them. But I always thought that I would do it as a dancer first, and then thought maybe I might do Grizabella when I was much older. But in unfolded in a completely different way," she laughs. "It is one of those roles I always hoped and wished I would do, but I didn't expect to do it so soon, so I'm very, very grateful."
Of course, it means she has the privilege and pressure of singing Memory - a song made famous by Elaine Page, which you know even if you've never seen the show. But Ragavelas is revelling in the opportunity.
"When she sings Memory, and she gets to that climax, "Touch me", it's just heart-wrenching, because that's what she's yearning for. We all know how we feel when we're yearning for that touch, whether physical or emotional. And when it comes to that moment it's the heart of the show. Lots of people know the song, but putting it in context, telling her story, it becomes much more powerful."
Ah yes, the story. There is one, though it's a fairly loose narrative, woven around the poems of T S Elliot which inspired Lloyd Webber all those decades ago. But in many ways, that vague and unusual storyline is part of what has made Cats endure - it appeals to all ages, to people from all cultures, because we all know about cats (we certainly all love those endless YouTube videos), and you don't have to have an deep understanding of the storyline to be swept away by the surreal, timeless spectacle of it all.
"In one sense it's just people dressed as cats really," Ragavelas laughs. "Sometimes when you're doing the rehearsals, crawling round on the ground, nudging each other, you suddenly think, 'What am I doing? What am I actually doing?' It's quite bizarre in some ways. But when you let yourself get lost in it, be transported, and sink into all the emotions it evokes, when you do that, it's the most magical feeling."
1939: Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - on which the musical Cats is based -- by TS Eliot, is published by Faber and Faber.
1954: A 6-year-old Andrew Lloyd Webber hears the poems for the first time read to him by his mother at bedtime.
1978: Lloyd Webber had the idea of setting the poems to music - "partly because I wanted to discover if I could write melodies to existing words".
1980: First draft performed at Sydmonton in 1980. In attendance was TS Eliot's widow who brought with her unpublished poem Grizabella The Glamour Cat. Lloyd Webber rewrites, adding Grizabella and - after seeing another unpublished poem - the Jellicle Ball.
1981: The original production opens at the New London Theatre, in the West End.
1982: Cats opens on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre
1989: After 3358 performances, Cats becomes the longest running musical in the history of British theatre.
1991: Cats became the longest, continuously touring show in American theatre history.
1997: The show becomes the longest running musical on Broadway, until January 2006 when it is overtaken by Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera.
2000: Cats closes on Broadway.
2002: Cats closes in London the same year it celebrated its 21st birthday having notched up 8,950 performances.
Who: Cast members of Cats
What: Cats, the Australasian tour
Where and when: Opens at the Civic Theatre in Auckland on Friday, September 11
