I'm watching Cats for the first time and....wow, this is strange.

So… People who read the collection of poems are uneducated idiots? :confused:

The production I saw was at the National theater in Washington DC. It has a fairly small stage and was positively squished in with their sets. I had a vague understanding that there would be little to no story or plot, and that they would be instead bringing poems to life.

As a serious ballerina at the time, I was REALLY looking forward to the dancing. I was expecting top of the artform modern dance with leaps and catlike nuances. I got a bunch of people in hastily drawn makeup sitting in a garish set singing in the standard chesty Broadway tones.

Disappointment was palpable throughout the theater; or perhaps mine was so intense it filled the room. Could’a been both.

I’ve always been amused by the line in Tank Girl where TG said ‘Let’s go see CATS!’, as if it were still running. :stuck_out_tongue:

[Scotty]“Capt’n! There be CATS here!” [/Scotty]

Yep. Bury it in a giant litterbox.

Anyone else want to call Jellicle Cats, ‘Jelly-Filled Cats’? Especially in the play.

In case there’s anyone who hasn’t read it, here is The Old Possum’s Book Of Practical Cats

I’ve always assumed that “jellicle” was a child’s way of saying “angelic.” Has the intended definition ever been given?

Saw Cats umpteen years ago on Broadway. Back then it was very popular, especially with foreign tourists to NYC.
You certainly don’t need to know any English to enjoy it - I think we were the only NYers in the audience :slight_smile:

Oh, and we really enjoyed the show!

One of the better musicals I’ve seen.
Memories:

One of the great songs from a musical.
I realized right away that one of the songs in the show was about the cat version of Moriarty.

I like Cats and am also looking forward to a Waste Land musical.

They weren’t kidding, you know:

Now And Forever

Oh, how awful! I’ve seen Cats a few times and am ALWAYS impressed by the amazing dancing and movement. Even if you look at the actors that are not the focus, they are always in cat-character, slinking around like real cats. Uncanny and impressive.

I always thought it was nonsense. Do you have an explanation for “pollicle” dogs?

This website has an alternative explanation: Definitions of Jellicle Cat and Pollicle Dog by Hawkheart29 on DeviantArt

Not sure I believe it.

T.S. Eliot was talking with a child about his angelical cat, and the child asked “What’s a jellicle cat?”

I’ve seen shows with cats acting and dancing like cats. Cats wasn’t one of them. In the two productions I saw, and in all of the clips I’ve seen of other productions, the cats are all dancing in unison, and in the fragments of script Weber added to tie the poems together, they’re all paralyzed with indecision awaiting the arrival of their great leader. That’s not cat behavior. Heck, I’ve never even heard of a production that got Mr. Mistoffeles’ gender correct.

My hypothesis is that Weber was a big fan of Elliott’s depressing poems, and wanted to set them to music, but he knew that he’d get a terrible audience reception for that, and so he got out the only cheerful poems Elliott ever wrote, even though he didn’t in the slightest understand them, and then crammed in as many of the depressing poems as he thought he could get away with. It’s no coincidence that the best-known and most well-regarded song in the play is one of the ones that’s not from Old Possum’s Book.

Oh, and the music isn’t even original; he plagiarized it from himself of a decade earlier.

Sad to say, your dream is not
Her name is Jenny Anydots
Pharaoh has it in for you
With tiger stripes and leopard spots

I saw it on Broadway at Winter Garden a week or 2 before the last show in the 90’s. Went with a theater geek friend. I didn’t get Cats, at all. But the theater, sets, and costumes were all very interesting.

I saw a production of it in the 90s. My ass itched to be out of the seat and away from the theater practically from the beginning. My first wife, who was a trained singer and who had some stage experience of her own, shrugged the whole thing off as being more fun for the performers than for the audience.

Pretty much the only line from the show I use on occasion: “He breaks the law of gravity!”

Actually, if I heard right, “Memory” is the only song in the show where the lyrics are not in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

Also “The Heaviside Layer”. And it seems to me that there was another one, too, but I can’t remember which one it would be.