#Andrew Wilson as Tumblebrutus

[annoyedcatdad]

The cast of CATS with cats! 2/2

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“I did 339 performances of the CATS revival and I went upside down 36 times per show – which means I did 12,204 acrobatic moves, on a severely raked and hard stage, all in my 30s. Still can’t believe I was given the immense honor to do this. Thanks bones for getting me through…and my OG gymnastics coach, Dave McKinnis.” Andrew Wilson, Tumblebrutus on Broadway 2016.

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Meanwhile, Tumblebrutus:

(Giuseppe Bausilio and Andrew Wilson, Broadway 2016.)

[jellicle-home-for-jellicle-ships]

Demeter has a lovely big Tumble boy to make her feel safe! (With braces on his hands so he doesn't hurt himself when he's feeling flippy. Andrew Wilson was in his 30s while he was playing Tumblebrutus, and has made a few comments about finding it tougher on his body than he would have a decade earlier.)

Samantha Sturm is Demeter; Broadway revival.

[isaterriblebore]

It’s the final day of Tumblebrutus week so I thought I’d finish it by posting one of my favorite Tumbles, Andrew Wilson who was in the Broadway Revival and US Troika Tour

Look at him :)

Here’s another pic :)

And here’s a bonus photo of him from the US Tour swinging as Tumble with Trevor Downey as Pouncival.

[thediaryofatheatrekid]

Cats Movie Cast

So apparently not everyone in the cast is going to have a name and honestly WTF Andrew Lloyd Webber? That’s one of my favorite parts how all the cats have different names and different personalities. I mean I just can’t this was funny at first, but with AB doing the choreography and now this WTF.

Roles Confirmed: Meesha Garbett as Mouse Sister 3 Daniela Norman as Demeter Eric Underwood as Admetus Francesca Hayward as Victoria Ian McKellen as Gus the Theatre Cat Idris Elba as Macavity Jaih Betote as Coricopat James Corden as Bustopher Jones Jason Derulo as Rum Tum Tugger Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella Jon-Scott Clark as Chorus Cat Judi Dench as Old Deuteronomy Kalene Jeans as Chorus Cat Katie Morton as Chorus Cat Laurie Davidson as Mr. Mistoffelees Mette Towley as Jemima Rebel Wilson as Jennyanydots Robert Fairchild as Munkustrap Shay Barclay as Chorus Cat Sophie Carmen-Jones as Macavity Girl Steve McRae as Skimbleshanks Taylor Swift as Bombalurina Yasmin Cogan de Abreu as Chorus Cat Zhane Samuels as Chorus Cat Zizi Strallen as Tantomile

Roles Unconfirmed/Unannounced: Aaron Jenkins Benjamin Milan Bluey Robinson (Alonzo, Mungojerrie, Tumblebrutus, Victor) Chelsea Marie Hogg Chrissy Brooke Corey John Snide (Mungojerrie) Danny Collins Wright Freya Rowley (Rumpleteazer) Ida Saki (Alonzo, Mungojerrie, Victor) Jonadette Larry Bourgeois (Mungojerrie, Rumpleteazer) Laurent Bourgeois (Mungojerrie, Rumpleteazer) Naomih Morgan (Rumpleteazer) Nicole Bondzie Olivia Grace Cowley Po-Lin Tung Ponciano Almeida Samuel Baxter (Alonzo) Sharifa Tonkmor Tommy Franzen Yasmin Harrison

[celestial-depths]

What’s Great About Cats (The Musical)

Lately, I’ve been thinking about Cats. The movie adaptation of the famous Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical premiered last month to absolutely scathing reviews. The critical and the popular response to the film has been so abysmal that it has become a spectacle of its own. Everyone in the world seems to have gathered around to join in the gleeful axing of this one trainwreck of a film – which is kind of cute. At least there’s one thing we seem to agree on in these divisive times. This is not a review of Cats (2019), because I have not seen it. I don’t care to, at least not for now. I couldn’t even get through the trailers without cringing myself to death. Still, I do have some fascination with the film as a cultural event, and I have found myself watching and reading numerous reviews and think pieces on Cats, both the original stage production and the movie adaptation, which all seemed to revolve around two major questions: 1. How did a movie like this get made? and 2. Why was this show ever popular in the first place? The latter question on particular has been on my mind. I should know the answer, because I was completely obsessed with it for a funny couple of years of my early teens – and I’m not sure why anymore. I first saw the 1998 adaptation of the musical on TV when I was 13, and something about it instantly struck a chord in me. I started watching it over and over again, until I knew every character by name and every step of the choreography. I know which cat is called Munkustrap and which one is Tumblebrutus, I’ve seen the show live a couple of times, and yes, I can even tell you what a goddamn Jellicle cat is. But eventually my interest in the musical waned, and I moved on to obsess over something else. Probably Neil Gaiman. In some ways, it’s no mystery to me why I fell in love with the show so hard at that point of my life. Teenagers tend to get obsessed over things they’re fond of, especially if they’re lonely. The show made me happy, so I kept watching it on repeat in search of a lost sense of joy. I have a tendency of becoming intensely invested in all sorts of cultural properties due to some part of my personality or brain chemistry that absolutely refuses to enjoy the things I like within reasonable limits, so of course I couldn’t stop watching it. And the show was campy as fuck; that’s certainly a common feature in a lot of things I’ve stanned since and before. So, that’s a part of the answer: I have an embarrassing history of being an ardent fan of Cats because I came across it in a time when I was in need of something fun and campy to escape to. But was in the show that made me like it so much more than anything else I might have caught on TV? That’s a harder question to answer, because I frankly can’t see it anymore. In fact, my enjoyment of the musical left me pretty much as soon as I stopped being a fan of it; just a couple of years later, I found myself looking back and wondering what on earth I saw in the show in the first place, because I could no longer stand it.

Revisiting the musical today, I don’t even feel any nostalgia for it. I don’t like the songs. I don’t find the characters compelling. The show is childish, but it never fully commits to being children’s show, which gives it a weird vibe. The lack of plot is a common complaint, but that one doesn’t actually bother me all that much, since I’ve always viewed it as a kind of a revue – but it’s not like not having a plot does a show as thematically empty as Cats any favors. The dancing is pretty good, and I quite like the costumes and make-up designs of the stage production, but not enough to say that I like the show overall more than I dislike it. So, what was it? Did I simply have a poorer taste in music as a thirteen-year-old? Probably. Am I secretly a furry? Definitely not. Is there a deeper meaning to Cats that most people simple miss? I don’t know. I thought about this a lot in the wake of the crazy reaction to the first trailer of the movie. That’s also where I eventually found my answer. I try to keep up with news about upcoming movies, and I first heard that they’re turning Cats into a movie right when they first announced it. I immediately thought it sounded like a bad idea, and I assumed that the movie would never actually make it into production. Then the casting announcements starting dropping, each wilder than the one before. Dame Judi Dench! Rebel Wilson! SIR IAN? TAYLOR SWIFT? IDRIS ELBA AS MACAVITY THE MYSTERY CAT??? At some point there, I started wondering if there really was something genius about the visual presentation or the script of the movie that was drawing all these big names in, but nope – even the news about the making of the film kept me reassured that the movie was going to be... not good. I heard that Tom Hooper was directing, which did not bode well since he’s not exactly the type of visual or conceptual mastermind (unless you’re very, very into unnerving close-ups, fisheye lenses, and unmotivated mise en scène) that a source material like Cats would need in order to become remotely interesting on the big screen, and because Hooper’s previous take on a from-stage-to-screen movie was pretty uninspired, at least as far as musical movies go (Les Mis is a garbage movie FIGHT ME). And then came the news about the state of the art digital fur technology, and I could already predict that the movie was going to be not just bad, but a disaster. The first trailer and the unanimously awful reviews only confirmed what I already knew. I’m not going to pan the actual movie because, as I said, I haven’t seen it. It looks too creepy, and I am not interested in spending my money to see what I imagine is the worst possible version of something that I already dislike. But I did see enough trailer footage to realize what was it about Cats that made me like it in the first place because it was so obviously missing in the movie adaptation. Allow me to explain. In the stage version of Cats, the performers are dressed in painted leotards, shaggy wigs, and ragged leg-warmers, and their faces are covered in fanciful make-up designs. The choreography is a mix of ballet, jazz, and modern dance moves with feline movements and hisses thrown in. In other words, the costumes and the performances suggest felinity rather than attempt to represent it as closely as possible. None of the performers look or act like real-life cats – yet the magic of the theater allows the audience to accept them as cats for the duration of the show. Cats also makes very good use of its format. It’s tailored to be enjoyed live in the theater, where the audience can really appreciate the big, elaborate dance numbers and feel the scale of the set, which usually consists of big junkyard items. The performers regularly jump off the stage and come out to interact with the audience, and they tend to goof around in the background during someone else’s number, which adds to the unique and personal feel of each performance. In the movie, wigs and leotards are ditched for CGI, which turns the actors into horrifying human-cat hybrid monstrosities. While they arguably look more cat-like with their hideous moving ears and furry faces than the stage actors, they also don’t look enough like cats to justify the decision to take the look of the characters so far. The rules of the theater don’t apply to CGI; it either looks right, or it looks wrong. And Cats looks VERY wrong. From what I’ve heard, the movie has also chopped down its dance numbers into such little pieces through quick-paced editing that it’s hard to appreciate the dancing. There’s obviously no audience interaction either, no electrifying presence of a live performance. The movie has apparently taken the show and stripped away everything that might have made it somewhat enjoyable. Which brings me to my point. What’s great about Cats? It’s not the music or the costumes. It’s not the characters or the lyrics. It’s not Memory. It’s the fact that Cats channels the essence of theater. It may not be good theater, but it’s definitely theatrical to the highest degree. It’s a show that brings out and relies on elements that are unique to the medium: the presence of a set and talented live performers, the interaction between the actors and the audience, the magic of conjuring up an impression that the audience believes in through clever costuming and movements alone. Take those elements out, and you’re left with nothing but an awkward group of celebrities prancing around to dated showtunes with nonsense lyrics.   

There’s a reason why theater hasn’t become outdated as a form of art, even though it’s been competing with movies for over a century. The two mediums are not interchangeable; there are still plenty of things the theater can do that simply do not work on screen. I’m sure that this isn’t the only reason Cats the movie became such a colossal failure (I’ve heard that human-faced cockroaches who were later consumed by Rebel Wilson’s character were also involved), but I like to think that it’s a part of it.  

I was pretty new to theater when I first saw Cats. Looking back now, I can finally tell that the thing that I fell in love with wasn’t the actual show, but theater itself. Cats introduced me to stage musicals, and while my interest in that particular genre has diminished over time as well, I did develop a life-long affection for theater in general. 

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Broadway revival: Emily Tate covering Victoria on two different occasions in 2017.

The first (Song of the Jellicles) is somewhere between 18 July and 27 July, if @skimblyclaus-is-comin-to-town and I are right about identifying Mistoffelees as Zachary Downer (started 18 July), Aaron Albano as Skimbleshanks (covered the role 13 June to 27 July), and Carbuckety as Jakob Karr (injured himself 6 August, and by the time he came back there were other cast changes). The others that we can pick are: Ahmad Simmons as Alonzo, Christopher Gurr as Gus, Lili Froelich as Electra, Zachary Daniel Jones as Mungojerrie, Andy Huntington Jones as Munkustrap, Quentin Earl Darrington as Deuteronomy, Daniel Gaymon as Plato, Tyler Hanes as Tugger, Andrew Wilson as Tumblebrutus.

The second (Warsaw) is between 3 and 29 October: several people are present who started on 3 October (Sam Lips as Alonzo, Aaron Albano back as Skimbleshanks, ?Marc Heitzman as Plato), but Electra still looks like Lili (left after 29 October). As in the first clip we have Zachary Downer, Zachary Daniel Jones, Andy Huntington Jones, Tyler Hanes, Quentin Earl Darrington, and Andrew Wilson; and that looks like Haley Fish as Rumpelteazer.