Front of House: Observations from a Decade on the Aisle (16 page)

Actors on Broadway tend to have more privacy and less recognition than those on television or in the movies, unless they’re superstars who headline the marquees on a regular basis. Even then, they’re probably far less likely to be mobbed in a supermarket than a known television actor, especially if they’re outside of New York. They are shielded from the audience by makeup, wigs and stage lighting; the patrons don’t have the chance to scrutinize their faces up close. Average Broadway chorus girls and boys can probably live their lives completely incognito.

The
Cats
actors were perhaps the stealthiest of all. Concealed beneath layers of feathers, faux fur, yak hair wigs and full feline makeup, it was almost impossible for the casual theatergoer to recognize them out of costume. The Playbill included a page with everyone’s headshots, but it was still hard to recognize people when you were using one-inch black and white photos as your reference.

Of course, the superfans had no trouble identifying the actors. A handful of the performers, who had appeared in other high-profile productions, were well known. In particular, an actress of some standing, such as Laurie Beechman, Betty Buckley or Liz Callaway, usually played Grizabella the Glamour Cat, who sang “Memory.” The three Broadway actors who appeared in the film/PBS version of
Cats
were also easy to pick out of a crowd, and had cotillions of dedicated fangirls and boys. As I recall, there were even fanfic websites about the performers from the
Cats
film. For the most part, though,
Cats
performers could go about their business as quietly as they wished without ever being recognized.

Patrons still wanted autographs, regardless if they could tell who was who. Thus, almost everyone who exited the Winter Garden Theatre through the stage door after the show was greeted by a clutch of eager, bright-eyed fans brandishing Playbills and Sharpies. They’d ask all of us the same breathless question: “Excuse me, are you a cat?” If someone confirmed that they were in fact a performer and started signing Playbills, the next question was typically, “Oh! Who were you?”

Every now and then I saw a performer or two pretend that they weren’t cats in order to escape without signing autographs. I’m sure they had their reasons. Maybe they were just tired. Most of them did stop to sign, though, even after matinees when they were in a hurry to get lunch, get back to their dressing rooms and perhaps nap for a little while before the evening show. The
Cats
performers were good folks, by and large.

Hey! Wait! Are you a cat?
It was the same question every single night. I shook my head sadly as I said, “No, sorry, I’m not.” I hated to see the disappointment that crossed the kids’ faces every time I told them that I was not a performer, but there was no other answer to give. Pretending to be something I wasn’t would have been beyond despicable.

“What do you do, then?” asked a woman. Her child, standing next to her, smiled up at me. This took me aback; there had never been a follow-up question to the Cat Identity Query.

“I’m just an usher,” I muttered.

“Will you sign my Playbill?” she said, and offered it to me.

“But I’m just an
usher,
I’m not
in
the show…“

“You’re a part of the show too,” she said firmly, and offered me the program again.

“Sure,” I stammered, turned to the
Cats
title page in the Playbill, and wrote an inscription. She smiled as I gave it back to her, as though I were Grizabella or Mistoffelees.

Just an usher. Part of the show, too.

Thank you.

Right after I left for South Africa in late February 2000, the closing notice for
Cats
was posted. If you’re curious as to why closing notices are always “posted,” as opposed to simply announced: there’s actually a piece of paper informing the cast and crew of the closure that is tacked to the bulletin board backstage. That’s also why you might occasionally hear a show person say that the notice went up. It
did
go up, literally, on the wall. Whatever else the management does, whether they hold a meeting with the staff or send emails or make phone calls or skywrite or what have you, there’s always that memo, printed in stark black and white, posted backstage.

I was crushed, but it really wasn’t a surprise. We’d had a lot of bad box office numbers at the Winter Garden that winter, and there had been some nights where entire sections of the theater had been completely empty. I didn’t think it was a failure by any means; I just thought
Cats
had run its course. It had been running for nearly eighteen years, just about everyone in New York who went to the theater had already seen it, and there were a lot of shiny new shows that did a good job of diverting the tourists’ attention. Teens wanted to see
Rent
; families with children gravitated toward
The Lion King
or
Beauty and the Beast
; those in the market for a contemporary musical also had
The Phantom of the Opera, Miss Saigon, Jekyll and Hyde
and
Les Misérables
to choose from. For dance fans,
Fosse
was doing brisk business.

I was back in New York for my summer break in June, so I had a chance to say goodbye. I actually purchased an orchestra ticket to the show so I could see it one last time as a patron; then I ushered at
Cats
for the next two or three weeks. I worked for my entire school break; I wasn’t a trust fund princess and I needed the money. I also wanted to have one last run at the Winter Garden.

On my first night back at
Cats
I waited on the steps to see Julius. As he came out into the audience for the overture, he noticed me, veered over to the staircase where I was standing, and whispered “welcome back” before enveloping me in a hug. More joyful hellos and hugs were exchanged when I ran into Keith backstage at intermission. All of my performer friends were staying with
Cats
until it closed, so I was able to see Keith terrify the audience as Macavity; witness Julius’s conjuring turns as Mistoffelees and watch Billy dance in tandem with his twin as Coricopat. I was among kindred spirits on the ushering staff, too; most notably, my dear friend Greg.

Somewhere along the way, it came out that I never watched “Memory.” I know this was sacrilege; “Memory” was
Cats
’ signature song. It was Grizabella’s big moment, delivered with a hearty dose of regret and sadness. Grizabella was the black sheep of the show, so to speak; a cat with a shady past that was alternately reviled and excluded by the other characters. “Memory” was her redemption song; by the end of it, the rest of the cats knew she deserved the privilege of going to the Heaviside Layer. Old Deuteronomy flew her up to the Heavens on a magical tire. She disappeared on a silver cloud that floated away under the ceiling, and that was that.

It was all very poetic and poignant and magical, even when you realized that it was a death scene. The Heaviside Layer was Heaven, or the afterlife. You couldn’t get there without dying. When all the cats were angling to go to the Heaviside Layer, they were essentially asking to die. It was pretty macabre when you considered it in that light.

Anyway, I was not a fan of “Memory.” Ballads aren’t my thing as a rule; I greatly prefer high-energy dance numbers. And frankly, having grown up as an Eighties child, and having heard “Memory” played everywhere from piano recitals to shopping malls, I was over it. When I worked at
Cats,
I always went to the ushers’ room to get my belongings during “Memory” if I possibly could; it meant that I avoided sitting through the damn song.

“Watch it one more time. Just once,” Keith urged me. I grudgingly promised to do so, and on my last night at the Winter Garden, I sat in one of the vacant boxes and watched the entire Grizabella scene. And, although I hate to admit this, “Memory” absolutely slayed me. By the end of the scene I was bawling, and that was entirely unlike me. It wasn’t just the music; I think it was also the realization that I really was saying a permanent goodbye to a theater and a show I loved. I knew I was never going to sit in that box again; I was never going to guard the stage, I was never going to watch friendly cats run past me in the darkness.

Cats’
final performance was originally scheduled for June 2000, but as soon as the closing was announced, business picked up substantially. The producers ended up extending the show for three more months and closing it in early September instead. I wasn’t there to see it; I’d had to return to school.

On the September evening when the Jellicle Cats took their final curtain call, I was in Africa. Specifically, I was in Mauritius. We had another school break, and since it was only a week long, I decided not to fly home. It was far too expensive. Instead, I booked a very cheap trip to Mauritius. It was only about four hours by plane from Cape Town and it was a tropical paradise, so apparently a lot of South Africans went there for their beach vacations. In Mauritius I was able to see the Indian Ocean for the very first time in my life.

I didn’t think that much of
Cats
on the night it closed, but the next morning I woke up and it was on my mind. I looked out over the beautiful, crystal-clear Indian Ocean and realized that it was gone. I later heard that
Cats
had been given an amazing sendoff, complete with fireworks over the Hudson River, and I was sorry I had missed it.

One of the regular ushers at
Cats,
Pat, saved her closing night gift for me. It was a professional 8” x 10” photo of the entire cast and crew, front and back of house, assembled onstage. There were so many people on staff that they’d needed to bring in the giant Growltiger pirate ship set to fit everyone in the photo. The silver frame was engraved with the show logo and the closing date.

Looking at the image is bittersweet, because several of the people on that Growltiger ship are no longer alive. One of the performers died only a few years after the show closed. Several ushers have also passed away, including Pat. Even without the photo, though, my
Cats
memories sparkle in my mind.