Theatre Calgary: Cats

Cats is one of my "top three" favourite musicals. (The other two, by the by, are Les Miz and Phantom. I came of age in the time of Andrew Lloyd Webber, what can I say?) I was beyond excited when I found out last year that Theatre Calgary was going to be putting on a production of the show, and at that time told my husband that I really, really wanted tickets for my birthday.

 I held out little hope - who tells their husband ten months or so in advance? But he's a great guy, and of course he pulled through - when he handed me a square box on my day I didn't know what to expect, but lo and behold, there were the tickets tucked inside of a great mass of tissue inside. Sneaky fella, huh?

At any rate, I only had a couple of days to be excited before the show, but I was in great anticipation. I told everyone who would listen that we had tickets for the show, and bounded around like a maniac singing to my own cats, who tolerated me in their own way.  That is to say, they gave me disdainful stares and barely managed to keep from clawing me to pieces as I tried to make them shimmy with me to Magical Mr. Mephistopholes.

Because we've been to Theatre Calgary performances before, we knew what to expect and headed directly for their underground parking garage.  We were shocked to find it completely full, even though we were quite early.  After some driving around we finally found a regular lot to park in a block over, and counted ourselves lucky to find one of the last two places available!  A tip here from experience; check the Epcor Center calendar to see if other events are happening on the night of your performance, and if they are, be sure you leave much more extra time than you expect to find parking.  We barely made it in the doors before they closed and the performance began. (Sixty seconds to spare, whew!)

Trust me, it was worth the extra bother.

One thing I really appreciate about Theatre Calgary is their extremely innovative set design.  There's something a little avant garde about the way they build their worlds, but it's positively seamless, and always seems to wrap around into the theatre to envelop the audience within the little world of magic that takes place on the stage.  Cats was no exception to that.  With the area transformed into a back alley at night, everything from bins and crates to a broken down vehicle to abandoned neon signs were in evidence in the world of the Jellicle cats.  And don't even get me started on the wonderful twists of set design that emulated a pirate ship or allowed an aerodynamic cat to climb a rope from one of the audience balconies!

Cats is always a design explosion - even little theatres can usually show some amazing production values, but Theatre Calgary pulled out all the stops, with extraordinary sets, costumes that were both finely detailed and resplendently ragged in the traditional Cats style (with a few unique twists I hadn't seen before!), and a cast that romped and kneaded paws, and clawed and tumbled in a beautiful synergistic, energetic display.

I have seen two productions of Cats before this one; a mediocre one at a small dinner theatre and an extraoridinary one by the Broadway touring company. This was at least on par with the Broadway company, with slightly different moments of brilliance in each one. 

In the Theatre Calgary performance, Jennyanydots (Cleopatra Williams) and Grizabella (Cailin Stadnyk) shone the brightest to my eyes; the actresses were positively radiant, Williams for her sparkling tap performance and brilliant personality and Stadnyk for her phenomenal vocal talent and touching shows of emotion. While the entire cast was well-chosen and there wasn't a single "bad" performance in sight, the wonderful frumpy-old-cat archetype of Old Dueteronomy (brought to life by Sam Plett) was my favourite character personification of any performance of Cats I've seen (or nearly any play I've seen, for that matter).  We particularly enjoyed watching him on stage throughout the intermission, where he groomed and stretched, and looked a good deal like our own big fluffy George cat on his perch onstage.

If you are looking for a great musical to help introduce theatre into your children's lives you can't go wrong with this production of Cats.  Theatre Calgary even provides a student guide for those headed in to see this as a school group or just with their families. There is also an audience enrichment guide available for anyone wanting to boost their appreciation of the poetry that makes this play what it is.

It takes about forty minutes on an average night for us to make it from the Strathmore border to Theatre Calgary's location.  Not a far drive for such a brilliant performance and an evening of true entertainment.

 

Five stars.  Even with the drive, this is completely worth the travel time, as it's a brilliant performance full of quirky wit and stunning talent.  Everyone should go!

E & W Chinese Buffet

I travel often with my husband when he is doing his circuit of library visits, which means I get to see a lot of small towns in the southern Alberta region.  Today, it was Trochu and Three Hills that we were set to visit.  Both of these little towns have great libraries, by the way.  If you're in Trochu, you should stop and shop for shoes, and stop at the dollar store downtown, where the librarian in town assures me that the coffees on offer are truly stellar.

Some towns are better than others when it comes to lunchtime offerings.  As a matter of fact, some towns that have libraries don't have a restaurant at all - or even a gas station for that matter!  But the Trochu and Three Hills area has several, and on this particular day my husband was in the mood for Chinese food, so we stopped at E and W, which provides a lunchtime buffet of Chinese and Western food.  More accurately, to my view, what it provides is Westernized Chinese food.

 You'll find it located at 1011 2 st. N, with this lovely mural on the building facing the parking lot. Inside, you seat yourself and can order from the menu if you'd prefer not to sample the buffet offerings.  Still, when you're new to a restaurant, I find that it's often best to try the buffet, so you can choose a little bit of everything just in case the thing you order turns out not to be what you're looking for.

To a certain extent, that was the case here.  Most of the food on the buffet is deep fried and slathered in thick sauces, which isn't always the tastiest, and definitely isn't the healthiest option.  The wonton soup did turn out to be a surprising, light, and delicious start to the meal, chock full of dumplings and green onions in a flavourful broth.  I often find wonton soup to be far too salty, but this was just right.

As for the food, it was a mixed bag.  The onion rings were wonderful, if a bit oily, but perennial favourites of ours such as the sweet and sour pork and ginger beef were vastly disappointing, both soggy and lacking in flavour.  On the other hand, the chicken and asparagus and the steamed vegetables were both delicious.

My Plate

We both found that the noodles had been sitting under the heat lamps a little too long.  My husband sampled the chow mein and I tried the shanghai fat noodles, but we were both disappointed in the results. They had that stale, stiff taste that happens in these situations, though to be fair, the woman working the front register did offer to make a fresh batch of chow mein for my husband, when she noted his dissatisfaction with it.

My Husband's Plate

The buffet contains a small salad bar (with two types of chopped lettuce, a few bottles of dressing on ice, potato salad, orange slices and cookies) and a heated area with the basics of a Chinese menu, as well as two soup offerings.  Soft drinks are from cans, not from a fountain, and refills are not free.  In addition, the drinks were served warm, and with no ice.  I'd recommend requesting either a glass of ice or just ordering ice water instead of getting a soft drink.

Still, it's an inexpensive lunch; buffet and one drink for one person is $11.50 at the register, so if you are looking for a quiet, quick lunch that will have you in and out as fast as possible, this is a good option for the area.  Because of the quality, it only garners a three star rating.