Robert DuSold

As I sat in a rather large rehearsal studio in midtown Manhattan in the early 90’s on a rather small, metal folding chair, by myself, I was wondering if they were gonna make me dance right away.

I mean, I was in this cavernous dance studio for my first day of rehearsal for “Cats”.

Why did they rent this giant space just for me?

I was going into the company to play Old Deuteronomy, the rather large cat who sings a bunch and doesn’t really dance.

Since I moved to New York in 1983, it was my mission in life to be in “Cats”. For realz. I had made my Broadway debut in “Les Mis” before “Cats”…you’d think that would be enough….but I couldn’t die without being in “Cats”.

I’m almost always early for rehearsal, so when the door opened and a guy in khakis and a button down entered and not a guy in tights I was relieved.

Phew, we’re just gonna be singing today.

Well…..

We weren’t gonna be singing. The very nice dude who came into the studio with a rather large backpack was the new production supervisor. He introduced himself…I’ve forgotten his name… and sat down in another folding chair directly across from me.

Just the two of us.

He pulled out a rather large book, that appropriately corresponded with the largeness of the experience for me up to that point.

He opened the book, looked me in the eye and said:

“Demeter was raped”

In my head, I was like “I think I know who she is? Oh. Ohh …and I’m so sorry. Who is she? That’s really concerning. Oh God. Wait a minute, I know she’s a cat but can cats get raped ? Wait, she’s a cat, right? Wait, um… I’m not sure I’m ready for this… do I have to dance next? I’m gonna look like shit in a unitard…”

With these thoughts racing through my little actor brain, he launched into the story of “Cats”.

And what a story it was.

Every relationship with every cat, yes cat, explained down to minute details. Motivations, stories, backstories, names for stuff I’d never heard of. Etc. Jesus the cat names alone….

There was something quite profound in really digging into that poetry. When I started music rehearsals, every line of “The Moments of Happiness”… a beautifully odd song..was dissected and discussed and worked on and rehearsed for weeks.

As it turned out, I did have to dance the opening number. It was really not easy for me, but again, the attention to detail was required and the bar was very high. And I managed to keep up. I had to. It was “Cats”.

But the dancers in that show! I’m the luckiest person in the world to have seen that every night from my front row tire.

The entire musical required extraordinary skill and talent. You can’t fake that.

The stories were real too.

I suppose my character was the God-ish presence in the skit, someone ..cat..who was loving and forgiving, There’s a moment towards the end, a sort of processional that I was leading someonecat to the next life that was so full of love and sadness and triumph and ..I know it sounds fucking crazy… left me in tears every night. The faces. The cat faces. I didn’t know who anybody was out of makeup for weeks after going into the company. Like seriously I had no idea who they were.

But onstage, the characters were there, and so was the face of the first guy I fell in love with. He had just died of AIDS. And more than one friend who had died of AIDS who was in “Cats” was staring at me. Their faces and spirit were there. I got to help them get wherever the fuck they went. Where did they go?

Maybe that’s why I was there. I don’t know.

I saw the movie today.

I guess my first thought was how did they CGI the skill and talent out of some world class dancers and not CGI the talent into the ones that really needed it?

My next thought was how many Chardonnays in a pitch meeting did it take to come up with that? Seriously, I’ve been in a few muckety muck meetings in one of my other 9 lives as a producer and by the time you get to the level of movie stars there are so many people swinging their cat weenies in the wind that it takes everything you’ve got to hold on to a smart vision.

Everybody has a manager and an agent and a publicist and they all want in. And many of them have egos the size of Jason Derulo’s package.

Ego is the cockblock of art.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this was made after Gillian Lynne died…she was the real genius behind it.

“Cats”is really just a vaudeville that’s based on several varieties of performance art ….that’s what made it work. That’s really the only way it works. I found that foundation completely missing from the film. There was no connection between music, dance and story. No reverence. No smarts. There is nothing that can replace that, and it would have been much better with at least a studied knowledge of musicals. They’re quite difficult to get right.

There were lots of erect CGI cat tails.

And plenty of “I’m gonna just poop on this whole skill thing because that’s my schtick and I’m a movie star and people will laugh and the audience won’t notice maybe” shiz going on.

I noticed.

Let’s face it, everything is a brand now…that’s what sells everything. “Cats” is a brand. The brand took a big hit.

I didn’t make it through the film….I left about two thirds into it…I’d been CGId out of my brain by then. I felt like Malcom McDowell in “A Clockwork Orange” when they put those metal clamps on his eyelids and made him watch a movie.

As I got into my car, and momentarily forgot where the steering wheel was, I thought to myself…. if they only knew Demeter was raped.