The story of Cats is that in the 1930s, the famous poet T.S. Eliot wrote a book of cutesy little cat-themed poems for his godchildren
And then 40 years later, Andrew Lloyd Webber found a lost cat poem that T.S. Eliot had cut from the cat book for being too sad for children, and ALW was like “woahhh. A cat….that’s sad. That’s deep, man. I wanna make a musical out of this”
So the producer assigned to the project was like “okay, I guess you could maybe read these cat poems as a satire of 1930s British society? We could probably do something sort of interesting with that, I’m thinking a cast of about 5 and–”
And ALW was like “no. Forget the satire. Also I want a cast of dozens and the most advanced special effects technology ever seen on stage. I’ve taken out a second mortgage on my house to fund this”
And the producer was like “wh– you– wh– do you even have. a plot”
So ALW got a bunch of actors and writers and artists together and they holed up and did cocaine workshopped for 5 weeks, and at the end of it they emerged and said “the plot is that a bunch of cats are having a dance contest for the right to take a ufo to cat heaven :)”
and then it made 2 billion dollars.
You know how the best genre of rock song is “There’s a Wizard”? CATS is good because it’s two and a half hours straight of “There’s a Cat”, which shares a lot of the same musical DNA.
Though curiously, the “There’s a Cat who is a Wizard” song is actually the worst one in the whole play. It’s not great on its own, but it’s REALLY not done any favors by the song right before it, “There’s a Cat Who Has Done Every Crime Ever And Everyone Is At Least A Little Horny For Him.”
I’ll die on the hill that Cats does have a plot, it just happens to be told in reverse.
In the fairytale about the Little Match Girl, we follow a lonely, cold, and abandoned girl as she walks through the winter night and peers through windows at the people celebrating the holidays in the warm houses.
Cats is like this (though with a happier ending), except the first characters we’re introduced to are the ones celebrating. They hug, they affirm each other, and we’re continuously shown what a strong bond they have.
A third of the way through, their celebration is interrupted by Grizabella, the outcast who longs to be with them, and to no longer be seen as a filthy untouchable. She expresses her pain, she scolds them, but the older cats (usually Jellylorum, Demeter, and/or Bombalurina, but it changes from show to show) only reiterate her untouchability as the kittens look on
When she once again returns, after the climax of the Jellicle Ball, she’s outright rejected in spite of the leader of the cats Old Deuteronomy, reaching out to her. He can’t let her in, because her shunning is a social one, not an authoritarian one. Every time a kitten naively reaches out to her, an older cat scolds them. Every time an older cat considers reaching out, they look around, see that they stand alone, and draw back. Then they mock Grizabella, repeating her bid for connection back at her, with nothing but scorn in their voices. The most painful part is when Jemima, one of the naive kittens, joins in on the mockery of the adults. Grizabella tries. She tries so hard to be like them, to be one of them, but they never let her.
It’s not until her third bid for connection, near the end of the show, that she finally gives in and sings her I want song, showing them all not just what she has been, or what she could be to the other cats, but what she is right now, who she is right now, that the kittens are finally allowed to welcome her in, and help her, like they’ve always wanted to do. When Grizabella finally bares her innermost soul, her untouchability is voided, and she finds a community.
Notice also how Griz sings of a ‘new life’ in her I want song. We joke that Cats is about the characters deciding who gets to die, but death is not final when you have nine lives. The night passes, a new dawn rises. Death is renewal. Grizabella the Outcast dies, and Grizabella the Kinswoman is born.
