[Heavylove]

Since this was the show I felt in love with I am not much of a rewiever but I thaught it would be fun to run some ups and downs (if any?) of this swedish version of Cats.

The set and most of the team was originated from the Gothenburg run in 2006 and the stage is set around a winterclosed tivoli rather than the original junkyard and overall the set designer have done a very good job and is even alouded to smash in some very succesfull changes from the original set/acting. More on that later.

Costumes is very good and fresh looking, basicly variants of the cloths less feline costumes thats tends to be the standard thoose days. Make up and costumes is said to have been influated by Japaneese Manga style and it works surprisingly well.

The casts perfom well and I couldnt see anyone doing a bad. Gus the Theathre Cat did a splendid work and he even got some well deserved applause towards the end of his part as himself (Could that sort of things be expected by the director?) and then he surprised turned back at the audience... brilliant! (Gus is played by a well known swedish actor, Per Myrhberg)

Most of the cats strolled down from the audience isles in the beginning (I understood thats a part of the participance thaught) and it worked well except for some cats being a bit to eager to hit the stage for my taste. Two cats (the acrobatic team) was ropeling down from the roof and that was a real hit, as one guestbookwriter puted it "The feeling for a 8 year old to get a cat on her head was undescrible!"

I dont know if this is the "standard" but this version showed a wall as a curtain that after the first song was rolled away to show the rest of the setting. I liked it and I especially liked the cat lying on that wall for a few minutes before the start of the show looking at the audience as theyre took theyre seats. I dont know how many percent of the audience that noticed that but for me it was a real hit and start of a love story that lasted the entire show...

The rest of the numbers followed at good tempo and there were hardly no slow or dead moments. Mixed in the shows and dancing were the acrobatic team doing a splending job taken the show to a new height and using the entire setting (from floor to sky) to a new level.

Maybe there were some weakness during the later part of Macavity number cause I lost the story part where Macavity kidnaps Old D and Mr Mistoffeles magical way off geting him back (Learned about that later) and that part was a bit confusing for me. (By the way Old D is called Old Levithius in sweden for unknown reason)

One off the changes from the original is that they use rollercoaster cars for the train part rather than having cats turning train parts and for me that worked fine. Shimbleshanks is even kissing the lokomotive at one point and I especially liked that image since its telled everything about his dedication to the train.

The translator had done a very good work and overall it was a very successfull evening for me. If I found my way to one off the tours Id love to see it just to see how the original worked. Five Cats of five possible!