What Is Cats?

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For 38 years, the answer to that question has mostly been this: a Broadway musical that runs about two hours and twenty minutes based on a 1939 book of poems about cats by T.S. Eliot. Created by Andrew Lloyd Webber (The Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar), Cats sets those poems to music. The musical is not known for its plot, but rather its memorable song and dance numbers.

Cats debuted on the West End theatre in London in 1981 and won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical that year. The upcoming movie is directed by Tom Hooper, best known for The King’s Speech. This won’t be the first time Cats will be filmed. A version of Cats was staged for direct-to-video release under the helm of David Mallet, a renowned director of music videos.

What Is Cats About?

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Cats is about a cats who experience stuff like, “getting really hyper at night” and also, “breaking your shit.” You know, #justcatthings. There is a metaphysical component to it though: the titular cats gather in a junkyard and introduce themselves in song, making their case to be reborn as a younger, hotter cat.

An older cat named Deuteronomy oversees these proceedings. A lonely old cat named Grizabella wants to join the festivities of these cats, known as Jellicle Cats, but is rejected on account of her colorful past and ragged coat. In the end, Grizabella is deemed worthy and ascends to be reborn.

Why Is Cats Such A Big Deal?

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Outside of winning awards, featuring memorable songs and making a butt load of money over decades of sold-out performances Cats is a big deal because it heralded an invasion of lavish, big-budget musicals into Broadway. It may not look like much compared to today’s lavish theatrical production designs, but back then Cats was a level of spectacle unseen before.

But what really kept audiences coming is the fact its two hours of non-stop dancing. Cats might not seem like much on the programme, but it’s a very demanding show with well-known choreography. The costumes emphasized the dance insofar as they’re simply dance uniforms furred up that ask the audience to suspend their disbelief that these people are pretending to be cats.

These days, it’s not a big deal for performers to use a number of theatrical devices to assume anthropomorphic animal roles – just look at the Broadway production of The Lion King, or the amount of work motion capture performers put into the Planet of the Apes films.

But more importantly, Cats legitimized the idea that theatrical effects like music, costumes, stage design and dance rather than a deep plot or compelling stage script can supply the kind of powerful entertainment that audiences will pay for again and again.

Why Do The Cats Look Like That?

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For the stage musical, the performers basically dressed like furries. They wore tight fur-patterned suits, fluffy arm and leg warmers, fuzzy collars and headpieces with ears, and facepaint to top it all off. Needless to say, the costumes was the source of much confusion for kids who discovered Cats on home video, and more than one person on my Twitter feed has said Cats made them bisexual.

But in the film, the cattributes – sorry – are added in digitally. Fur tails, ears and whiskers, they’re all CG. Taylor Swift, who plays, Bombalurina, told Entertainment Weekly that “it’s not animated, it’s not motion capture,” despite the existence of production videos that show actors in mocap suits. The results – which lie in the realm of deepfake and medieval paintings – have not generated the best responses.

How Did The Actors Learn To Cat?

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Once again, Taylor Swift shared the deets with Entertainment Weekly. “We had this thing called ‘cat school,’” said the pop princess. “You could learn about how to create the motions of cats, how to think like they think, how to sense things the way that they do, carry yourself the way a cat would. I learned a lot.” Do you think the actors learned how to stare at you while you’re on the toilet like cats do?

Why Is That Song From The Trailer So Familiar

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The song which underscores the entire trailer is “Memory.” It’s sung by Grizabella, a role usually reserved for an actress who makes up for a lack of dance skills with some killer singing pipes. Arguably the most memorable song, it won Best Song Musically and Lyrically at the 1982 Ivor Novello Awards.

Apparently, Webber’s father said the song, “sounds like a million dollars.” An apt description for a song that is the reason people buy tickets to Cats. It is a very good song, so it’s fitting that Jennifer Hudson sings it. Hudson is an American Idol finalist who has gone on to win two Grammys and one Academy Award for her role in Dreamgirls. Girl can sing.

Who Are The Cats?

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Cats is an ensemble musical, which means there are no lead roles to speak of in the conventional sense.  But here’re just some of the major roles and the actors playing them.

Taylor Swift plays Bombalurina, a ‘sexy cat’ who is horny for other cats because cat. Jennifer Hudson plays the aforementioned Grizabella, a lonely old cat implied to be a sex worker. Idris Elba plays Macavity, a dastardly criminal, who on stage doesn’t have any songs. Which is strange because Elba can sing. Rebel Wilson plays Jennyanydots, a cat who is lazy in the day, but crazy at night.

Judi Dench plays Deuteronomy, a loving and soft senior cat who is given great reverence by the other cats. Ian McKellen plays Gus an elder cat who made a career for himself on the stage and sings about his memories there. James Corden plays Bustopher Jones, a ‘fat cat’ of the upper class who holds membership in many clubs. He’s friendly to the street cats, though.

Hip-hop artist Jason Derulo plays Rum Tum Tugger, a cat who is so sexy, he has a song about how he’s sexy. Laurie Davidson plays Mister Mistoffelees, a charming cat who uses his magic to conjure the plot into appearing. Francesca Hayward is Victoria, the white ballerina cat, who doesn’t sing but leads most of the ensemble dance numbers.

What’s A ‘Jellicle’?

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The cats in Cats call themselves “Jellicle Cats.” It sounds like a nonsense made up word but according to a Telegraph report, it’s how T.S. Eliot’s niece pronounced the words, “dear little cat.” From the song “The Jellicle Ball” we learn that Jellicle Cats are black and white, rather small, merry and bright and pleasant to hear when they caterwaul. Though anyone who actually owns a cat knows that last bit is debatable.

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