Have you met a cat? Have you ever wanted it to do something? Have you seen how that has gone?
Stephen Colbert invited a bunch of circus cats to his show and they didn’t do much
The circus cats who went on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night might be a good refresher.
The Amazing Acro-Cats are a traveling cat circus based in Chicago, who traverse the nation in a whiskered bus with their human ringleader, Samantha Martin, and a couple assistants. The circus is made up of 14 feline members, who are baited with tuna and chicken liver to ride skateboards, jump through hoops, loop through slaloms, climb poles and nudge rubber balls.
Over the summer, I attended one of the Amazing Acro-Cats’ performances in Brooklyn. It took place in a warehouse that was, if I had to guess, at least 400 degrees with 200 percent humidity. As on Colbert, what few cats could be coaxed out of their carriers were not very interested in doing tricks. Instead, they stretched, sharpened their claws, leapt into the audience and scurried away and collapsed in winking heaps. Which is to say that they acted like cats, as they did on Colbert.
But the cats’ approach to the rigors of circus life is all part of the cat circus experience. On Monday, when a cat -- as opposed to Colbert himself, who readily filled in for several of the less-willing participants -- did deign to carry out a trick, the crowd erupted in applause.
“Very impressive,” deadpanned Martin in July when a cat jumped through a sheet of paper, “when you consider we’ve only been working on that for nine years.”
