'CATS' not exactly the feline's meow

Broadway's longest-running musical ever, "CATS" packed the PAC Tuesday night.

The North Charleston's Performing Arts Center was full of kids, many of whom were asleep before intermission.

But they have, by heaven, attended a genuine hit.

Or it was, in the London and New York versions. Here, Trevor Nunn's original staging and Gillian Lynne's choreography fell victim to Richard Stafford, who is credited with directing and choreographing the touring company.

The company itself is full of young, talented singers and dancers, especially Christopher Sidoli as Growltiger.

But not even these performers, giving their heartfelt best, can rise above pedestrian staging, lights that smacked of high school productions and static scenery.

This show is all about spectacle, relying on costumes, make-up and stagecraft as much as Andrew Lloyd Webber's score, nicely rendered by a five-piece electronic band. But this series of song-and-dance numbers seemed never to catch fire.

The audience offered only perfunctory applause, even for what should have been the show-stopping "Memory," nasally rendered by Tricia Tanguy as Grizabella. At the end, however, came the obligatory Charleston standing ovation,

The plot, a mere thread based loosely on T.S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," disappeared, as much of the company's group-speaks and group-sings were undiscernable.

You can catch the plethora of hip-swiveling and cartwheels at 7:30 tonight and Thursday.