Lea Salonga slips into the hide and fur of Grizabella ? a cat shunned by the tribe she left in her youth, and with which she earnestly seeks a reunion, possibly redemption as well ? for Andrew Lloyd Webber?s ?Cats Now and Forever.? Her task is not just to sing ?Memory,? the best-known song off the score, but to tell the story.

It?s a really simple tale, but one that?s proven to be so well-loved across continents, that it?s given the musical the greater part of a proverbial expectancy of nine lives. So far. ?Cats? was born in London and has been ?reborn? in New York, Canada, Australia, toured in Asia...

?Grizabella is very, very important,? said Sharyn Winney, resident director and choreographer of Lunchbox Theatrical Productions in Australia. ?She ties the whole piece together. Her story is the journey of the show. Through her, the deep spiritual message is delivered ? give to others your time and understanding, release all judgement, open yourself up, and you will receive happiness.?

Tall order, especially since ?Griz,? also known as The Glamour Cat, is onstage for under 12 minutes. Understand that this is one of only three thought-full and two non-dancing roles out of 32.

Shaun Rennie, who plays one of the three introspective cats, Munkunstrap ? in the Lunchbox company that?s currently touring Australia and coming to Manila in July ? puts it another way: ?All the cats get to that place of caring and forgiving through Grizabella. She is the enabler.?

?Lea Salonga is going to bring the house down,? predicted John O?Hara, who himself brought the house down the previous night at the Festival Centre in the South Australian capital, Adelaide. O?Hara plays Rum Tum Tugger, the rock-star-sexy cat who interacts the most with the audience.

Tight community

John Ellis, who plays the other non-dancer, Old Deuteronomy, leader of the tribe, agreed: ?I?ve seen Lea perform in New York. That?s exactly what she?s going to do, bring the house down. And I?ve worked with people who?ve worked with her. Everyone is in awe.?

The Australian actors, most of whom have been performing in this production of ?Cats,? have formed what Rennie describes as a ?tightly knit community that is quite similar to the one that you see onstage, by way of inter-cast dynamics.?

Either they?ve grown inextricably into their characters, or they?d been picked precisely for most closely resembling, as humans, their feline stage versions.

Rennie explained: ?Jo-Anne (Robinson, adaptation director and choreographer) cast people with qualities similar to those they?re supposed to portray. For example, as ?Munk? I?m very protective of Old Deut and of everyone in the tribe. In real life, I?m the very protective eldest of three brothers.?

Munk is also the least thrilled that Griz has come back, and the most reluctant to forgive her. In this context, Rennie sees Lea?s coming in as somewhat of a master stroke: ?Grizabella is quite isolated. She is the best character to pick out, for someone new (to the group) to portray. Lea coming in right there... it would definitely work.?

Distinctive piece

The distinctiveness of ?Cats? as a stage work doesn?t stop at the fact that it was adapted from a book about cats by the illustrious poet T. S. Eliot (?Old Possum?s Book of Practical Cats?).

Winney noted: ?It has a unique choreography, which requires the actors to take on the movements and personality of another species altogether. The performances change every night, too, because, to keep it fresh and interesting for them, the actors intermittently come up with little new moves that make me sit up, when I?m watching from the audience, and say, oh, how clever!?

Musical director Paul White describes the score as ?clever,? too, and ?extremely? so. ?It?s eclectic, multi-genre ? rock, jazz, pseudo opera, pseudo classical. Considering that it hasn?t changed in almost three decades and people are still coming to watch, that should say a lot.?

Also, Winney pointed out, the orchestra is not where it should be, conventionally. ?There is no orchestra pit, so there are no boundaries between the cats and the audience. The actors can cross over freely at certain points.?

The set is also distinctly unlike any other. It?s a junkyard, so it?s filled with junk! Tires and other car parts, wires, books, bottles, scraps and other such remains of ... everything, including fish ? but blown up, regarded as they are from a cat?s point of view.

It?s officially global trash, however, having been collected from everywhere that the troupe has performed. Production stage manager Pene Quarry said she was looking forward to a piece of Manila being added to that very realistic set, indeed, except that, mercifully, it didn?t stink.

5th Avenue gang

Rest assured, too, that the ?Now and Forever? cats are wearing much more elegant costumes than the original players. Morrison, head of wardrobe, related: ?If you?d seen the original ?Cats,? which would have been the London production (by Cameron Mackintosh and The Really Useful Theatre Company, 1981), the cats looked like alley cats. This current production is based on the New York staging, so here they look more like 5th Avenue cats.?

Morrison stressed: ?Now that the London and New York productions have closed, this would be the closest to those first two.?

Every wig, made of durable yak hair, costs upwards of US$3,000, said Sharon Case, head of wigs. Each one expresses the personality of the character, she said, and Grizabella looks the most human, ?because the audience has to empathize with her.?

Nothing is ever bought from a store ? every single outfit (a big ?no? to accident-prone zippers), down to the footwear, is handmade, Morrison said. The whole getup, of which every actor has two sets, requires very precise care, so that a team of four oversees upkeep vigilantly. That whole team is coming to Manila, armed with two washing machines, three dryers and the requisite detergents.

Speaking of Manila...

The company has performed ?Cats? in Korea, China, Thailand and Singapore, but the actors seem to think of Manila as different from other Asian destinations. Rennie remembered being told that the Philippines was ?unique in its Asian-ness.?

O?Hara or Tug, the rock-star cat who has played vastly with audiences around the world? lifting a purse here, pulling a pony tail there, hiding a cell phone (a joke that wasn?t taken well) ? revealed: ?We usually sit down a couple of weeks before we go somewhere and discuss what is acceptable and what isn?t, because ultimately, we?re visitors in a different culture. We need to find that balance between keeping the show the way it?s meant to be, and endearing ourselves to the audience, without offending sensibilities.?