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Andrew Lloyd Webber's immortal 'Cats' maintains its human appeal REVIEW By JULIE YORK COPPENS Tribune Staff Writer SOUTH BEND -- And we think cats are self-absorbed. People may consider themselves animal lovers, but the truth about a show like "Cats" is that the story isn't about animals at all. It's about us. The "Cats" story is about the uniquely human (so far as we know) capacity for faith. Faith in our own individual dignity. Faith in our shared humanity. And faith, above all, that when this life is over, we're going to get a second chance. The critics who hate this show, and they are legion, sometimes consider the phenomenal mass popularity of "Cats" a triumph of lowbrow spectacle and sentiment over all the higher things to which theater might aspire. They're wrong. As the touring company now marking its territory at the Morris Performing Arts Center demonstrated Friday, the musical -- ridiculous and infuriating as it can be at times -- has aged better than a lot of other entertainments from the early 1980s. Even its tired signature song, "Memory," retains a surprising power in the context of the show. Dee Roscioli, sings it beautifully. Other standouts include the theatrical pair of Nicole Johndrow and Kevin C. Wanzor, who bring first poignancy and then spirited good fun to the remembered glory of Gus, the theater cat. The Growltiger sequence, with its exotic visual touches, also serves to carry us away from the poetically lit yet mostly static trash heap that serves as the main setting. The cats, of course, are supposed to do the moving. If the dance staging and execution here doesn't quite live up to my own memories of past productions -- the pacing feels sluggish at times, the dancers' movement not uniformly clean and catlike, the moves themselves simpler than I recall -- maybe I've just grown more critical. Certainly Gus would forgive me for idealizing past theatrical feats. But I think I can say with authority that this is not the best, most capably sung or most miraculously danced "Cats" ever. Ryan Jackson, a fine dancer with a winning smile, receives the obligatory applause for his gymnastics as the magical Mr. Mistoffelees, but the number, like "Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer" and a few others, seemed labored to me. The key to maintaining the illusion of "Cats" -- that is, allowing us to forget that what we're seeing is really a bunch of young hoofers in wild wigs and Spandex -- is not trying too hard, and these actors haven't all found the secret to making their feline charisma appear effortless. The heart of this show, though, is sound. There's a great ensemble feeling among this cast, and if we don't always buy their animal behaviors, we do believe their human ones. And that, I'm now convinced, is the real magic of "Cats."

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