We Actually Went to the Cat Circus

Oh my goodness -- how can I begin to explain how fun it was to attend a performance of the Circus Cats??

Words cannot begin to explain. Really.

I’ve attended a lot of entertaining theatrical performances in my time. A lot.

I saw Leonard Nimoy play the psychiatrist in the original cast of Equus and George C. Scott play Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman when I was only sixteen. I saw Bette Midler perform in 1975 when I was (waaay) underage.

I've seen dreadful Dada performances, horrible modern dance interpretations of Kandinsky paintings, and just about every incarnation of unadulterated nudie-bits onstage. (And even one or two backstage.)
I even lived in New York City when “experimental theatre” meant that the cast kept their clothes on.

Bottom line -- I’ve seen it all. . .

But, I must say that it’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed going to the theatre more than I did on Saturday afternoon when I had the pleasure of seeing The Circus Cats (Yes, the “Cat Circus”) here in Chicago.

I don’t know why I enjoyed it so much, but I did.

The performance began, not with cats at all, but with all sorts of other trained critters: -- we began with several huge tightrope-walking rats, processed to a chicken with obvious many years of stage experience, then a creepy meerkat-sort-of-thing, and segued to a very talented woodchuck that could raise a flag on command -- all these were just the overture for the feline headliners.

Really -- a woodchuck that could. . . . I'm not making this up!

The performances of the 13 pussycats were truly impressive; that goes without saying. Miss Healthypants, our friend, Diane, and I scored some really excellent seats (second row, left). I laughed and was amazed during the entire thing.

Fortunately, my little video camera worked pretty well and I was able to document the following performances . . .

Here is a feline performer balancing a ball on a tightrope.


Then, here is a new kitten stealing the show.



And, then, the Grand Finale -- The RockCats! Yes! Four cats who actually play in a musical group! You’ve got to see it to believe it. You've got to see this. It's too cute:



Well, as you can see, it was all about the food for these guys. But still, we were able to get our photos taken with the lead guitarist afterward!

How often does that happen? Really! Especially when the crowd was, like, close to a hundred people (I will admit that we wedged a number of parents and little children out of the way to obtain these photos) - - but still . . . photos with the lead guitarist . . .

Here is a close-up of the fine feline. . .
Here she is with Diane . . . (It's an all-female cast. Apparently, male cats cannot be trained.)
And with Miss Healthypants . . .
Yes, I’ve seen a lot of theatre in my time. Like I said, I think I’ve seen it all.

But with the Circus Cats, I had the unexpected pleasure and unalloyed joy of feeling, once again, like I was an amazed little kid at the circus .

After all, how often in this life do we have the opportunity to have this much fun with our fellow creatures?

Footnote - all the cats in the circus were "rescue cats" and the producer brought plenty of other housebroken cats with her to be adopted, so there's that.