A Gritty Social Drama: CATS

Come on! This is FUNNY!

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Hmm... I do like the part where he quotes the Jellicle song.

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Haha! OK, its funny!

CATS does have a plot. It has an extremely detailed through line narrative if you choose to look closely enough. It's clear to me that a great deal of thought went into the devising of the order in which things needed to occur in order to tell that story better. It starts off during "The Invitation to the Jellicle Ball" letting you know exactly what the story is and then by the end of the night raps things up with the prostitute Grizabella's being chosen to start life anew.

It is very much a "concept" show due to the fact that T.S. Eliot had drawn up "sketches" for the purpose of using and incorporating the poems into an "evening" and I've always been rather impressed as opposed to finding it ludicrous that Webber, Nunn and Lynn were able to construct an evening of musical theatre, after Eliot's death, with the ban that the Eliot estate put on the inclusion of original material. They were therefor forced to create a "plot" using the unpublished poems of Grizabella, Eliot's "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" and fragments based on two phrases:

"Jellicle cats come out tonight, Jellicle cats come one come all. The Jellicle moon is shining bright, Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball".

and the unpublished idea of Eliot's that a cat would eventually travel "Up, Up, Up past the Russell Hotel. and "Up, Up, Up to the Heaviside Layer".

It is very much a story of redemption and exceptance that ends up being a heavy subject matter for a show that is often considered to be a children's musical.

Obviously, this clip really has nothing to do with CATS.

Except the make up and costumes.

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