Cats

Last night, as J and I were listening to Cats as we worked on our projects (it literally was a working weekend, as you will see in a later post), I was wondering what so enthralled me by the soundtrack when I was a small child. Because I was enthralled, and I've heard it probably about 50 times. The whole sountrack.

(By the way "Magical Mister Mistoffelees" was then my favorite. Mostly because our neighbor had the same issue: They thought their cat was Mr. Whiskers, when in fact she was Mrs. Whiskers, and they ended up with kittens.)

"Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats" echoed through the house as we cut and ironed.

Over and over again, the line repeated, as if it were on "endless loop" setting. I wondered if there was a Jellicle song mentioned in the chorus for each Jellicle cat. Then I started trying to count how many cats that would be...and decided that it would have to be more cats than even a cat lady could handle.

Never having seen the production, and having not thought about the musical in years, I peppered J with questions about the history of the musical:

Me: When was this written?
J. I dunno. Are you thinking that piano sounds awfully synthesized?"
Me: Yep.
J: Funny, I was just thinking that, too.

Me: Is there a man who is a cat herder and who introduces all the cats one by one as they come on stage?
J: I think there's a narrator cat.

Me: Are there speaking parts in between all the songs?
J: I don't know.

Me: What would it be like to dress up as a cat in full makeup and dance about in song? I'm so glad I'm not on Broadway.

After one particularly odd song/poem:

Me: I think whoever wrote this was inebriated. Or was on some sort of illegal drug-induced haze. Either that, or they had small children.

J: /surprised, laughing/ What?

Me: Why else would you (a) write so many poems about fantastical cats [you can tell I'm not much of a feline-lover] and (b) why would you set them to sometimes creepy music? How could you possibly conceive of the notion that combining a bunch of poems about the cats, and write hissing, scratching, stalking music and have adults dress up as felines and prance about is a good idea?

And, as an afterthought, why would it be a best-selling show?!?

Guess I'm going to have to go see it to find out.