With Moscow Cats Theatre, the furry will fly

NEW YORK -- Forget fish. If you want to get on a cat's good side, try chicken breast. That's the secret of Yuri Kuklachev's success, which includes persuading his troupe of performing felines to walk the tightrope, execute handstands, push strollers, and play nice with one seriously outnumbered dog.

''It's expensive," says Kuklachev, through a translator, of the talent's eating habits. He was relaxing in a front-row seat at the TriBeCa Performing Arts Center, where the show opened in September. ''But they love their chicken, and I love them."

Kuklachev is the 56-year-old founder and (human) star of Moscow Cats Theatre, which travels to Boston for four performances on Saturday and Sunday. Twenty-six members of the theater's 120-strong troupe of cats have made the trip from Russia, where they live with 10 caretakers and four veterinarians in a government-funded venue/living space. The stripped-down company -- which includes nine two-legged castmates, among them Kuklachev's son Dmitri and wife, Yelena -- made its US debut in front of non-Russian audiences at the TriBeCa center. In the past, they've performed stateside for exclusively Russian audiences.

Moscow Cats Theatre is a family show, performed without words, using a few quaint props and set pieces. Story lines ostensibly fuel the handful of routines in the 80-minute show; most seem to involve an extended dream about cats.

Following a recent performance in New York, several audience members expressed dismay at the steep ticket price for such a modest production; seats for the Boston shows are comparably priced at $46 and $56.

''I don't train them, I play with them," says Kuklachev, which is good news for animal rights activists but also helps explain the low-wattage impact of the show.

A former clown with the Moscow State Circus, Kuklachev stumbled onto his act, quite literally, when he came upon a stray kitten in the street begging for food while standing on its hind legs. Kuklachev, realizing that he could incorporate cat games into his circus act, took her home and named her Strelka. Soon Kuklachev and Strelka's ''Cat in the Pot" act -- reprised in the US show -- became a big hit with Russian audiences, and in 1990, with the support of the Russian government, he founded his cats theater. Since then, Kuklachev says, he and the cats have traveled to 80 countries and won numerous awards.

Back home the animals live in glass-fronted spaces, Kuklachev says, where they each have a bed and a chair. The 26 visiting cats have been living in a rented house in Brighton Beach, where they've commandeered a large basement -- all but one, that is. Marusa, who lives upstairs with Kuklachev and his family, seems to be the company diva; she's the one, after all, who pulls off the big-money handstand in Kuklachev's palm. But Kuklachev says that there's no special trait or particular proclivity that qualifies one cat over another when it comes to performing.

''Some cats come from shelters, friends bring a lot of cats, we have many cats already and they reproduce. I work with all of them," says Kuklachev. ''Even if she is afraid to work in front of the public, someone takes her around when the show is going so that cat starts to understand the public."

And if a cat decides in the middle of her act that she just doesn't feel like balancing on a disco ball?

''Nothing," Kuklachev says. ''She's going backstage and another comes to do the same thing. It's like a game for them. I watch them and see what they like to do and what they don't like to do and work around that. There's nothing unnatural. And there's no other theater of this kind in the world."

Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com.