Amazing Acro-Cats tumble into town

Before the show even begins, Samantha Martin, the creator and guiding force, behind The Amazing Acro-Cats, a Chicago based troupe currently playing a series of shows at Fort Mason’s Southside Theater, reels in the audience.

Within seconds, a besotted crowd of adults and children surround it, snapping pictures and oohing and aahing.

Using a clicker and a reward system of treats, Martin coaxes her troupe into pushing shopping carts, riding skateboards, leaping through hoops (of differing sizes, one so teeny it looks like the cat could get stuck mid-jump), catching a treat midair while balancing on a skull (Jax, the little black-and-white cat who performs this trick never quite succeeds Thursday night), pulling on ropes, balancing on parallel bars, and more.

Alley, a calico and the Guinness world record-holder for longest jump by a cat at six feet, repeats the stunt, leaping from platform to platform to earn her reward.

“Dogs will work for love or tennis balls, but that’s because they’re suckers,” Martin tells the crowd.

The Acro-Cats were born out of Martin’s desire to break into movies and commercials with her cats, but she wasn’t known as a cat trainer and her felines had no resumes.

In adddition to the more than a dozen cats, the show includes Cluck Norris, a chicken; a groundhog left over from the zoo; and three rats, an homage to the Acro-Rats — and Martin’s patter acknowledging both the absurdity of a circus comprised of small, domesticated animals and crazy cat people stereotypes.

[...] comes The Rock Cats, the world’s only cat band (plus chicken), playing what can be best described as atonal — maybe avant-garde — rock on cowbell, chimes, cymbals, tambourine, guitar, and keyboards.