ok, so this is the only reason i would consider living in nyc......well, this and the museums......from the nytimes...The manager of the coffee shop in Midtown was sorry, but he could not let Yuri Kuklachev and his entourage come in; the New York City Department of Health does not allow animals in restaurants. In Mr. Kuklachev's hand was a cat carrier containing Marusa, his favorite cat. He had brought her to New York, along with 25 other cats, on the nine-hour trip from Russia to perform in the Moscow Cats Theater here, and he was not about to be deterred by details. After repeated promises to keep the carrier under the table and well out of sight, everyone was allowed to sit down. (pictured-Yuri Kuklachev and the Moscow Cats Theater rehearsing at the TriBeCa Performing Arts Center. )
Then, through a translator, Mr. Kuklachev started to describe one of the cat's most famous tricks, when he suddenly leaped up. He slid out the carrier, and in a moment Marusa was standing on her two front paws in the palm of his hand, her tail waving in the air.
Customers stood up, craned their necks and pointed, as the manager hurried over to Mr. Kuklachev - and laughed. Mr. Kuklachev, a small, muscular man with white hair and wide cheeks, smiled and put Marusa away.
The show, which opens tonight at the TriBeCa Performing Arts Center and runs weekends through Oct. 30, features 26 cats; Mr. Kuklachev's wife, Yelena, as the Queen of the Cats; and two small, outnumbered dogs. The theater has a total of nine different routines, including "Cats From Outer Space" and "Nutcracker." No one show is ever exactly like another.
"Cats are like actors," Mr. Kuklachev said. "They do what they want. Sometimes a cat doesn't want one trick, so he does another."
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