#andy blankenbuehler is bad at cats

[millenari]

one guy saw cats in the 80s & loved it and was questioning if 'the jellicle ball was always so boring?' and let me just say gillian lynne is probably rolling in her grave like a pig on a spit

i was just looking through negative Cats reviews at my local theater's website (yeah im not sure why) but this one has enraptured me. 'one of them should be in p‌orn instead of a musical' sis you CANT just say that and then not clarify WHICH character you're talking about that's such a Compliment...

[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

Cast Interviews From 1986 vs. 2016

So, I’ve found a podcast that’s been interviewing various Cats cast members and superfans. Most of the interviews come from the cast of the Broadway Revival, but there are also several interviews from US Tour III which went from 1986 to 1988. So we’ve got a bit of both old and new. Here’s what I’ve learned about how things have changed over the years and why the Broadway Revival is such a confused mess:

In the interviews of US Tour III cast members, it seemed like everyone was told the story of the play and had a pretty clear idea of what was going on. Some actors were given backstories for their characters, but the amount of detail varied. Actors cast as Munkustrap and Tugger were told that their characters were brothers and the sons of Old Deuteronomy. Actors cast as Demeter were given a full backstory for the character. However, Grizabella’s story remained vague. Bombalurina, Mistoffelees, and Sillabub also had no confirmed backstories, and most of their characters were improvised during rehearsals. Also, since this tour was from 1986-1988, a lot of cast members don’t remember a lot of what they were told. It’s been a while.

Out of the backstory and character information provided, Demeter’s was the most consistent. She was kidnapped by Macavity, escaping shortly before the events of the play. She’s an outsider to the tribe, but she knows Bombalurina and stays close to her. Bombalurina also had some experience with Macavity, but she enjoyed it more than Demeter did. This lines up with what Jacob Brent said about Demeter in the 1998 version.

Some character dynamics are different from more modern versions. Alonzo is Demeter’s love interest, as was typical with Broadway-based productions. Also, in most productions, Alonzo doesn’t get along with Tugger, but he’s a fan of him in this version.

Outside of Alonzo, it was made perfectly clear that Mistoffelees was played as a full adult, the same age as Munkustrap. The actor who played him throughout the tour, Randy Slovacek seemed to have made up most of Misto’s characterization in that production by himself. Misto was friends with Grizabella in the past and wasn’t upset by whatever she did to upset the others. When she first appears, Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, taking the place of Coricopat and Tantomile, who were cut for the tour, run up to her and try to chase her away. Misto calls them off, but Munkustrap won’t let him do anything else to help her and he respects his authority too much to try anything.

The interviews of the Broadway Revival cast tell a very different story of what was going on behind the scenes. Apparently, they were rushed for time and there weren’t as many rehearsals before the show as there usually are. That, combined with the new choreography meant that nobody really knew what they were doing. Munkustrap and Tugger were confirmed to be siblings, but very little backstory information was given outside of that. The few cast members who worked with Gillian Lynne seemed to have a better idea of what was going on with their characters. Andy Blankenbuehler was still figuring things out and wasn’t able to offer similar clarity. The few times anyone was told anything, it was usually by Trevor Nunn.

Basically, Nunn and Lynne invented Cats, and nobody else seems to know how the fuck any of it works.

Tyler Hanes and Sara Jean Ford knew each other before being cast and they came up with a lot of backstory for their characters, which everyone else got drawn into. Ford played Jellylorum as the same age as Tugger. Since the actors are best friends, so are the characters, even though that makes little sense with their personalities. Jennyanydots, Bombalurina, Demeter, and Grizabella were in that same age range as well. It appears that nobody was anywhere between Munkustrap and Old Deuteronomy in age, for some reason. Jenny and Skimble are a couple in this version, so Skimble’s probably also in this group. They have kittens together. Electra and Rumpleteazer are among them, though nothing was said about Mungojerrie. The merge with Coricopat and Tantomile in the US Tour implies that they’re twins in that version. In the Broadway Revival and the tour based on it, they’re apparently unrelated.

Grizabella ended up with a far more detailed backstory, all made up by the cast. She’s Jellylorum’s sister and she stole a man away from her and Jelly never loved again. None of the kittens are Jelly’s, though she’s sort of the nanny to all of them. Griz also had some sort of affair with Tugger and broke his heart, which is why he doesn’t do commitment. Then, Griz ran off with Macavity, got dumped for Bombalurina, and then she got dumped for Demeter who decided that Macavity was bad news pretty early on and ditched him. The relationship was abusive, but no one mentioned a kidnapping. After leaving Macavity, Griz was no longer welcome in the tribe, even though Bomba and Demeter were because Reasons. Forgetting that these characters are not human, she then got addicted to drugs, was driven to prostitution to support her drug habit, had a bunch of kids, and then left those kids to be raised by Jenny, who resents her for it. Nobody says which kittens are Grizabella’s. Portions of this backstory were used in the 2019 movie.

Also, I can say that some of the characterization issues with Tugger were, in fact, a direct result of the choreography changes. Tyler Hanes wanted to play up the sexuality of the character in a way that the new choreography didn’t allow. If Gillian Lynne’s choreography had been used for the number, Tugger’s characterization probably would’ve turned out very different, but the changes meant that what Hanes knew about the character, and how the audience perceived the character, were altered by the new choreography putting emphasis on vanity instead of sexuality.

So, that’s the story so far. Compared to at least one early production, the Broadway Revival was rushed and poorly thought out. The actors were given little information and left to fend for themselves, and they prioritized their bonds with their irl friends over what made sense for their characters. Interviews of cast members from both the revival and the following tour reference Andy Blankenbuehler as the one who had all the information, who the cast looked to for instructions. But, he had no idea what he was doing and couldn’t really help them.

Most of the problems can be traced to Blankenbuehler not knowing what he was doing and never really figuring it out. Though, some blame has to be placed on the cast who, left to their own devices, had a lot of bad ideas. Hanes and Ford in particular, though it was good that someone was trying to take charge, created a bit of a mess. None of Jellylorum’s character resembles any other Jellylorum characterization I’ve ever seen, and it doesn’t even come across clearly on stage. The young cast all seemed to struggle with the idea of playing older characters and nobody told them that they couldn’t age them down. The generation gap between Tugger and Jenny and Jelly is character information that’s now completely lost on the audience. You need older characters disapproving of Tugger to show that he’s a controversial figure to the tribe, not just an annoyance to Munkustrap.

But, some of the worst characterization problems were not entirely the fault of the cast. As I mentioned before, Tugger’s characterization was changed by the choreography. Grizabella had already been aged down by her redesign. Since Demeter’s kidnapping backstory wasn’t explained, this affected how Demeter was portrayed. Her sympathy for Grizabella came from having been on that side of town as Macavity’s prisoner and seeing the condition she was in. Without that backstory, Kim Faure may have not known that Demeter was supposed to have sympathy for Grizabella and interpreted her part differently. This was the result of unclear direction.

What We’ve Learned Today:

1. In the 1980s, Mistoffelees was, in fact, played as older than Jacob Brent played him in the VHS.

2. Munkustrap and Tugger (and not Mistoffelees) have pretty much always been the sons of Old Deuteronomy.

3. The backstory Jacob Brent gave for Demeter was the standard backstory for the character well before the VHS was filmed.

4. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer were considered twins in the 1980s and most likely continued to be seen as such until the revival era, though I haven’t exactly checked in with every single production.

5. The Broadway Revival was a behind the scenes and nightmare and it’s mostly Blankenbuehler’s fault.

6. Gillian Lynne wrote Cats. Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a concept album.

7. There are no middle-aged cats in the 2016 revival. I think Sara Jean Ford started it.

8. The idea that Grizabella’s backstory involved Macavity started with the 2016 cast improvising.

9. Kim Faure’s Demeter was most likely OOC due to a removal or lack of explanation of backstory.

10. Sometimes it’s okay to do things the same way they’ve been done before.

[fluffytuffles]

Rant abt anything u want :3?

I'll try x'3 Just got my big one out lol

My biggest disappointment with modern productions of Cats can, I think, be traced back to choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, who redid the choreo for the 2016 Broadway Revival and later choreograhed the 2019 movie. I cannot say that the new aspects of the choreography are bad. I actually would really like them in a vacuum. But what I can't shake is that there is no room for the performers to breathe, to just exist onstage, in character. Because everyone has to be constantly moving, there's no opportunity for background character moments that fans of Cats find so crucial to the charm of the show. I believe I've said this all before, but I'm not sure I've shared my theory of how this happened.

The ensemble of Cats does not function the same as most musical ensembles. Chorus members are not taking on a variety of roles to fit whatever scene they're in. There are no scene changes in Cats. The performers (aside from a small handful of double-cast roles) play a consistent role throughout the show. They're not just bodies on a stage, they're all characters with specific personalities. And I feel like this aspect was missed in the conversion.

[itsmyregularcat]

i think the 'extras' refers to extra clips, behind the scenes interviews and such that are on the bluray or dvd. It really doesn’t make sense to look at individual extras to mock them and by just watching the film you really can’t tell what they thought it would be like. And the way op says 'some of them involved' wouldn’t make sense because how would one extra be involved and others not and if not how would one know someone isn’t involved just by watching. Which makes me certain it wasn’t aimed at extras as in actors but extras as in bonus material.

Not to be a shit disturber (and at the same time to absolutely be a colossal shit disturber), I disagree with you. The way that post was worded was certainly aimed at the actors versus the content in the extra features. Someone would have to specifically seek out the extra footage, which I doubt they would do when it is such easy, low hanging fruit to say ‘hehe cats dumb bad movie’. If someone disliked the movie (enough to deride it online), it is quite unlikely that they own a physical / digital copy. That extra footage absolutely shows and appreciates the effort that went in to make the movie, not matter what the outcome turned out to be. I can agree with that. Those involved were unabashedly committed to the movie.

Why did the OP use a gif of a ‘background’ cat then, when they could have used the behind the scenes footage you alluded to? The cat in the gif, Freya Rowley, barely appears in any of the behind the scenes footage (aside from being in the background) if you have ever watched it, and the same goes with 90% of the rest of the cast. The interviews in the extra footage are only with a few (main) characters and some notable production team members, and even then it is basically Tom Hooper and Andy Blankenbuehler (who I admittedly do have respect for due to involvement with the Broadway Revival) waxing poetically and ego stroking themselves. Tom thought he was doing something with all of changes, and while the ambition is admirable, it fell flat in the end because he sought to make it ‘his vision’ over Andrew Lloyd Webber’s. ALW even had to reportedly step in to reverse some more extreme changes, or else he would not sign off on parts of the movie. The more you investigate, the stranger some of the potential and scrapped ideas you discover, but they are all hear-say in the end because none of them will ever be confirmed.

Essentially no one aside from Jason Derulo, Taylor Swift, Judi Dench, James Corden, Jennifer Hudson, and Rebel Wilson are interviewed in depth. Francesca Hayward gets a bit, and so does Robbie Fairchild, but the majority of the interviews focused on the big names and direction team. If they would have spent the time to interview someone like Freya Rowley or Zizi Strallen (who has a fairly illustrious stage career in her own right) I would have welcomed it. Give a voice to those who are not going to be widely known. For fucks sake, quite a few of the ‘background actors’ in the movie were in stage shows of Cats. Named characters played by Naoimh Morgan (Rumpleteazer), Freya, and Zizi, as well as unnamed ensemble cats, like Corey John Snide and Kolton Krouse, were all part of Cats before the movie. They never got the recognition they deserved. 

Regardless, guess what? Everyone fucking hated it. Those people who poured their time and energies got ridiculed, and many pushed themselves away from associated themselves with the movie. It is likely the lesser name actors lost career prospects because of how poorly Cast (2019) was received. Imagine being in that movie, and seeing the reviews. I doubt you would say you were proud to be in it, though every actor should certainly be proud as all fuck that they were in such a movie. Who knows what the fallout from the movie will be for these actors because I assume the ongoing p*ndemic has ruined their careers even more.

Anyway, I will support and fight for Cats (2019) as long as I am in this fandom. I am tired of the insults related to how bad it was. I realize that it was not great, and that there was a lot that could have been so more better done, or that they destroyed the essence of the musical in many spots. It was my introduction, and why I gravitated to the stage productions. If the ill-fated movie led some viewers to discover the world of Cats, it does make up for some the derision and panning by a majority of asshats.

Thank you for your comment though. My apologies for going off a bit. You may be correct, but the way that post was presented suggests differently.

Anyway, stan Jellylorum 2019, stan Tantomile 2019, stan the whole damn cast, or if will fucking come for you I swear to the Everlasting Cat. Support those who cared enough to be in Cats and believe in it.

[lozzique]

Okay now that I've slept on it, my thoughts on the CATS film.

First of all, I am still not completely sold on it. We have only seen a first look trailer and the trailer released yesterday. Before I go into my points, I have to mention what cats means to me.

It's one of those musicals that a lot of people see live as their first musical, and that is the same for me. I saw it when I was 16, about to start college, and it's cheesy to say but seeing that show literally changed my life. Through CATS I have met the most amazing friends online because we all share the same love for a show that holds such sentimental value to us, whether we saw it live or watched the 98 film version. So you can imagine how jarring it is to see this trailer and see how different a lot of the aspects we love are.

Anyway, it's not like I wasn't expecting changes, I knew there would be! But when the rights of CATS were being sold to Andrew Lloyd Webber, T.S Elliot's widow had said that Elliot had never wanted his characters to become pussy cats prancing around on a screen, for he had already turned down Disney. This isn't the first movie production of cats, we had the 1998 VHS version which is well known and loved amongst the fandom, there has been a cancelled animation of CATS which had so much potential and now we have the 2019 version.

Personally I've been suspended in suspense for months awaiting this trailer, and while I think the new concept from what I've seen from the trailer looks good there are parts that throw me off and do make me slightly upset. I will try and condense them down.

The animation. To me when the first shot of Victoria (the white cat) came onto screen I genuinely thought if you make her blue she'd look like an avatar. But that was just a first impression. The body of the cat itself isn't that bad, it's how you would imagine a cat walking and dancing like a human would look like; IT'S THE FACE WHICH GETS ME. Yes I understand they want the audience to be able to see the actor and actress's faces beneath the animation, but what I am not seeing is an actual CAT NOSE. If there were distinguishable cat noses then I don't think I'd be that thrown by it.

Trying to make it realistic. While I really appreciate they've tried to make it realistic, I feel like they've missed the mark. CATS on stage isn't meant to be realistic, you are meant to feel like you've stumbled upon a Junkyard filled with magic and strange looking cats, but they look strange in the wrong way in the film to me, sorry to say it. I can see that the CGI animators have gone for more realistic looking cats in some cases, that's okay, but I feel like they really didn't need to do that if these Cats are already singing and dancing around in their own Milk Bar etc, which of course isn't realistic since it's not meant to be, then why not make the cats look cool and interesting? Why not give them fur that is coloured slightly differently to a normal cat? It's what helps them stand out at being Jellicle Cats. The great thing about CATS on stage is that you can clearly see differences between characters because they all look different! Yet in the trailer I found it hard to pick out the characters that aren't being played by a big name because their fur colours blended into the background, or they all looked similar.

Choreography. Okay this part is me just stating a plain dislike and sorry but bare with. GILLIAN LYNNE IS SPINNING IN HER GRAVE! If you don't know who the late great Gillian Lynne is, she is the original choreographer of CATS the musical, if you are unfamiliar with her work just search the CATS 98 film on YouTube there you will see a perfect example of her work. She was extremely talented and really brought the feline movement to life in the dancing. She passed away recently and it was a great loss to the theatre and dance world. But, the current choreographer for the CATS movie who also choreographed Hamilton and the broadway revival of CATS, to me doesn't fully present the feline illusion in his work. Andy Blankenbuehler has a very distinct dance style which of course works for other productions, but it's the wrong style for cats. Real life cats move elegantly. The broadway revival of CATS honestly was to me not that great from what I was able to watch online, that's nothing on the cast, it's just the choreography did not sit well with me, it was too hip hop and modern for something that is meant to me making you feel like you're watching cats dance under a moon.

There are probably more negatives I could pick out but I don't feel that's necessary so I'll move onto some positives!

I will be seeing the film. Yes I will still watch it because I'm curious, I'm not going to let my negative feelings from one trailer stop me from watching it in the cinema, I may love it once I've seen the whole thing, who knows. The version I am used to will just hold a special place in my heart.

I'm really excited to see the talent of the ensemble characters! If you don't know what that means, it is essentially the background characters. The amazing part of CATS is that you can look at any character at any point in the show and they will be doing something that brings to life their character and I hope that translates onto the screen.

The set looks really fun! Though I'm used to seeing CATS set in a Junkyard I am really excited to see that their universe has expanded, the inclusion of the Milk Bar or the cabaret that Bombalurina seemed to be in looks really fun because I have always imagined what a world just for cats would look like. The illusion that they are cats is really helped by how everything is supersized and I bet the cast had a lot of fun working around that.

Finally, I hope that this movie inspires more stage to screen adaptations (hopefully done right) because it would open up such wonderful stories that are presented on stage to a wider audience. Theatre tickets are generally expensive so screen adaptations are really good to tell the story to people all over the world.

Yes I'm well aware I've had too much to say about this, but CATS is really special to me and many others so I wanted to share my feelings, good or bad.

Think what you want about the CATS movie, everyone is free to express their own opinion whether they hate it or not, all I can say is don't be nasty or hateful to anyone who is genuinely excited about this film, let them be! And don't be nasty or hateful to people who aren't excited, they just have a different view compared to you.

[jelliclesongs]

My thought on the Revival (as of 12.4.17)

Overall, I do like it. It's different. Very different. But, I don't consider that a bad thing.

I was immediately struck by the size of the stage. It was smaller than I was expecting. I've always been under the impression that Broadway stages were larger then that. Then again, I live in a city that literally had one of the world's largest indoor stages until they cut off 20 feet a year ago. I was three rows back on far stage left. But even at the extreme angle, I never felt like I was missing out on anything. I've literally never understood the appeal of front row, center until now.

I loved the feel of the set. It was the junkyard, though mildly different in design. It was all old English 80′s trash and felt like it was almost falling out into the audience. The set really captured the grimy feeling of a trash dump, where everything is densely crammed into cliffs of filth. It was gross and I loved it. I've only ever seen the US tour and it's infamous inflatable set before and the difference is literally night and day.

I was also under the impression that the choreography had only been mildly changed, when that's really not the case at all. I've seen the original so much, both live and on video, that it was very jarring and I was unsure about it at first. That said- it grew on me and I was 110% into it by the end. I do think, however, that this jarring feeling was a result of the designs being so similar to the original's. In fact, my favorite designs in the revival are the ones that are the most dramatic departures.

I also feel like what little narrative there is in CATS has been emphasized in this production. It feels a bit more cohesive at times than the original and its far more telegraphed what's actually happening in the more abstract momenta. There also seems to be more emphasis on the individual cats. To me, the stand out gems of the Revival are Old Deuteronomy, Moments of Happiness, Gus: The Theatre Cat/Pekes and Pollicles, and Mistoffelees. A lot of the changes are things I personally would have implemented in a production.

I love the increased interaction of Old Deuteronomy with the rest of the tribe, the increased tribes hostility towards Grizabella, the use of ACTUAL STAGE MAGIC in Mistoffelees!?, the whole Mavavity sequence (where it's very clear he's specifically targeting Demeter), Macavity's new costume (which shares a similar silhouette with Tugger? I love that!), the fact that they understand which numbers are more popular and put some of the cut verses back in (while significantly cutting the one that I could care less about), increased prop usage to emphasize the scale of the characters, and old racist grandpa Gus™️.

I even liked the new choreography in a lot of places. While I found the gimmick of characters using large balls to slide on overused a bit, there's some major positives to the new choreography. I love Gillian Lynne's work, but its always struck be as bizarrely sexualized. The new stuff by Andy Blankenbuehler isn't nearly as sensual and I actually really enjoy that. They actually feel more like a group of cats to me now.

Overall, I liked it a lot. I don’t like it better than the original, but I don’t really like it any less either. I’d say it’s on par with it.

[eleonthescene]

CATS – In Theaters December 20

CATS – In Theaters December 20

Nov 30, 2019

Oscar®-winning director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Misérables, The Danish Girl) transforms Andrew Lloyd Webber’s record-shattering stage musical into a breakthrough cinematic event.   Cats stars James Corden, Judi Dench, Jason Derulo, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson and introduces Royal Ballet principal dancer Francesca Hayward in her feature film debut.    Featuring Lloyd Webber’s iconic music and a world-class cast of dancers under the guidance of Tony-winning choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler (Hamilton, In the Heights), the film reimagines the musical for a new generation with spectacular production design, state-of-the-art technology, and dance styles ranging from classical ballet to contemporary, hip-hop to jazz, street dance to tap.   The film also stars Robbie Fairchild (Broadway’s An American in Paris), Laurie Davidson (TNT’s Will), hip-hop dance sensation Les Twins (Larry and Laurent Bourgeois), acclaimed dancer Mette Towley (featured in videos for Rihanna and Pharrell Williams’ N.E.R.D.), Royal Ballet principal dancer Steven McRae, and rising-star singer Bluey Robinson.   Universal Pictures presents a Working Title Films and Amblin Entertainment production, in association with Monumental Pictures and The Really Useful Group. Cats is produced by Debra Hayward, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Tom Hooper. The screenplay is by Lee Hall (Billy Elliot, Rocketman) and Hooper, based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot and the stage musical by Lloyd Webber. Ca executive produced by Lloyd Webber, Steven Spielberg, Angela Morrison and Jo Burn.   One of the longest-running shows in West End and Broadway history, the stage musical “Cats” received its world premiere at the New London Theatre in 1981, where it played for 21 years and earned the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Musical. In 1983, the Broadway production became the recipient of seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and ran for an extraordinary 18 years. Since opening in London in 1981, “Cats” has continuously appeared on stage around the globe, to date having played to 81 million people in more than fifty countries and in nineteen languages. It is one of the most successful musicals of all time.   Genre: Epic Musical Cast: James Corden, Judi Dench, Jason Derulo, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson, and introducing Francesca Hayward Director: Tom Hooper Screenplay by: Lee Hall, Tom Hooper Based on: Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot, the musical “Cats” by Andrew Lloyd Webber Producers: Debra Hayward, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Tom Hooper Executive Producers: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Steven Spielberg, Angela Morrison, Jo Burn (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); Search for: Archives Archives Select Month November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 August 2015 /* */ Baseball Hall of Fame 2019 OTS Sports Silvana Magda with The Katenda Band & Viva Brazil Dancers ELE on Telexito Vargas Cosmetics (Short)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K68zhw-fxuM&t=116s CategoriesBlog Brazil Events Fashion Featured Flashbacks On The Scene News On the Scene Sports Press Alert Television Uncategorized

15th Anniversary Gala for the Orthopaedic Foundation

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Bad Boys for Life, en cines el 17 de enero

by admin | Nov 12, 2019 | Featured, On The Scene News, Press Alert | 0 Comments    El nuevo trailer ha llegado de la sumamente esperada película, Bad Boys for Life, en cines el 17 de enero. Los chicos malos, Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) y Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) regresan para su última aventura. Formando parte de este elenco...

Jazzmobile interviews Monty Alexander

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[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

I thought the Mistoffelees choreography in the Broadway Revival, though not as impressive as Lynne’s choreography was at least fine in the fact that it felt like it was written for the same character. The choreography changes in Tugger’s number actually change the first impression the audience would get of the character, toning down the sexuality to focus primarily on vanity. Seeing Tugger and Misto dance together was cute, so it’s not a total loss, but changing the choreography, which is what really tells the story in Cats, changes the story being told and I think Blankenbuehler was reckless, not considering what his changes would actually mean. Focusing on sexuality makes Tugger seem confident, but focusing on vanity makes Tugger look like he’s trying too hard to seem confident when he isn’t. There isn’t any implied story arc about Tugger’s vanity and confidence, so this implied set-up has no pay-off. Vain, but uncertain is Alonzo’s thing.

Also: Double Standard. The two numbers with the most sexualized choreography are The Rum Tum Tugger and Macavity. The Rum Tum Tugger sexualizes a male character. Macavity has all the sexy dancing from two female characters. Blankenbuehler redid Tugger and toned down the sexuality, while leaving Macavity completely alone. A lot of people are uncomfortable with the sexuality of Cats in general, but these changes imply someone who was uncomfortable when the men were being sexualized, but not when the women were.

As a choreographer, the Cats 2019 Movie was a disaster and I’ve seen bootlegs of the Mistofelees Broadway revival. Same choreographer. Andy, I swear.

Also they had Ricky Ubeda as Mistofelees. I’ve heard he’s extremely talented. So why waste him on that. USE THE ORIGINAL CHOREOGRAPHY. LET HIM DO THE CONJURING TURNS.

[silverflyte]

Why I think Cats 2019 might be great

This is a very unpopular opinion I know, but after seeing so much hate when the trailer dropped, I felt the need to grab my inner Cats fan and try and explain why I think the film might not be as much of a disaster as everyone seems to think.

When I first saw the trailer I was probably as shocked and repelled as most of the people subjected to it (cats with human faces WHY??????), but instead of jumping on that wagon right out of the box and piling on more hate to what really seems like a kick in the teeth to fans and a terrible way to reintroduce the franchise, I thought back to what I knew about the musical and its history, and why it became so popular in the first place.

If you don’t have any context, making the choice to use CGI for everything but the faces is easily one of the most disturbing decisions made by the creators. I cannot argue that it looks so strange that it’s distracting, so why the hell did they do it like this?

Ultimately, its because they are not supposed to be seen as cats at all, they are supposed to be seen as humans in cat costumes.

The history of Cats

To understand we should probably go back to the original source, the poet T. S. Eliot who wrote a book called Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. It’s a collection of poems about cats doing very cat things. The poem book was actually fairly popular, so popular in fact that Eliot was approached by Disney, who wanted to buy the rights to his poems so they could make an animated piece. Eliot was adamantly against turning his characters into cute cartoons, and he flat out refused Disney.

Fast-forward a bit to Lloyd Webber and co. approaching the widow of Eliot for the rights to make the musical. The idea here was not to make the characters cats beyond the gesture of the animal. The characters were going to embody more of the spirit of a troupe of UK dancers popular at the time known as Hot Gossip.

If you see one of their music videos (they’re on YouTube) then you’ll also understand why the cat dancers seem to be sexualized in the way that they are. At the time, Hot Gossip was new and risqué, and that was the flavor wanted for the show. Eliot’s widow said that he would much prefer that to cute cartoons and so, she sold them the rights to do it.

Ultimately the cats you’ll be watching in this film were never supposed to be cats, but rather they are people in cat suits, that is why they fundamentally look like people, they just have the weird feline “accents” if you will, like the CGI ears, fur and tails. Doing it like this also has another advantage: the facial expressions. We learned (the remake of the Lion King being a fresh example) that CGI faces just can’t capture the level of emotion that a real human face can, we’re still missing something, and with a story that relies of heavily on conveying emotion, this was a very good choice.

They were trying something new with technology, just as Webber was trying something new with the musical (the reveal of which was also terribly received).

That is another thing which might surprise some people: Cats was not a popular idea for a musical either! Webber actually had to remortgage his house to get the money to run it. It was like nothing the West End had ever seen before and let’s face it, “sexy cats” doesn’t really seem like the sort of thing you’d want to watch for a proper night at the theater. We need to remember that is concept was weird right from the get-go.

Despite that however the musical soared to fame. It won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical. It was new, different, hot and exciting, and the creators of the film, if they understand anything, understand that.

So now you might at least have an idea of where the weird CGI choice is coming from, and if that is all the ammunition you have in your hate box, then I encourage you to read on and learn why I think the new film could be really amazing.

Why you might love Cats

The DANCE

The numbers in cats are some of the most notoriously hard to perform in musical theater. They involve a lot of people, a lot of very active sequences and a LOT of different dance styles, with no small amount of gymnastics thrown in for good measure.

The entire musical is a collage of so many different styles (hip hop, swing, tap, ballet etc.) that is always absolutely captivating if you are any sort of fan of dance. The kicker: most of the dancers need to do ALL of them. The coordination, timing and skill needed to pull off most of the numbers far surpasses that required for any other show. From what I’ve seen of the film trailer and based off who is doing the choreography, the dance promises to be absolutely spectacular.

So, who is doing the choreography? Andy Blankenbuehler. You might know him from the musical Hamilton.

Even if you’ve only seen a clip of the show, you’ll get right away why he was chosen to do this. His work requires a huge amount of energy from the performers, and this is one of the strengths of the musical Cats. Weird CGI cat suits or not, the choreography promises to be out of this world, and because this is primarily a dance show, that might make it worth seeing all on its own.

Story-telling through emotion

Many people do not like cats because it was so different from anything people were used to. Most of the musical does not follow a linear plot, it doesn’t have central characters, it has very little to follow. The only story you’ll find is that of Grizabella, an old, washed up cat who was once very popular and very beautiful, she is shunned by the other cats (because surprise, cats can be assholes) because she is no longer those things, and I’m not about to spoil the tiny piece of plot you actually will get, so I’m not saying what happens. Primarily, Cats is a series of introductions of several cat personalities (the cat that can’t make up its mind, the cat that steals your crap, the cat that sleeps all day and goes nuts at night) but in all honesty, that isn’t a bad thing. The strength of this show is it rivets you with the feeling. It’s a lot of fun, but it can also be deeply moving, when Grizabella comes on stage its heartbreaking to watch he reaching out to the others only to be clawed or teased. You don’t have a protagonist per se, but the emotions created by the dance, the song and the atmosphere are absolutely overwhelming at times. It’s a different way of telling a story and in an era of recycled film formulas, this to me, is very refreshing.

Incredibly creative sets and props

One of my favorite things about watching the musical was the creativity that was allowed to let fly with the props and set design. The concept is that we are watching a group of “cats” go about their business one night, so to communicate this, the set and props are traditionally designed as blow-ups of regular items to make it look like the dancers are actually cat-sized. It’s not just the presentation of the props and set either, the dancers often include both in the dance numbers they do, making costumes or props for their storytelling out of the giant junk props made to help paint their world. One of the most spectacular examples is in the number Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat, where they actually make an entire steam engine out of things like umbrellas and car hub caps, all enlarged props made to look like regular old garbage.

In the movie they really went wild with this: They designed entire rooms, fun-house-big, so they give the whole cat-sized-human-dancer thing so many more ways to look cool. You get to go inside houses, out onto the street and really explore the world in which the characters live. The film keeps the color and wonder of the musical and expands on it, does new things with it and I am honestly excited to see where they take it.

[newyorktheater]

Judi Dench as Old Deuteronomy in “Cats,” co-written and directed by Tom Hooper.

(from left) Victoria (Francesca Hayward) and Munkustrap (Robbie Fairchild) in “Cats,” co-written and directed by Tom Hooper.

(from left) Rumpleteazer (Naoimh Morgan), Victoria (Francesca Hayward) and Mungojerrie (Danny Collins) in “Cats,” co-written and directed by Tom Hooper.

Jason Derulo as Rum Tum Tugger in “Cats,” co-written and directed by Tom Hooper.

(from left) Mongojerrie (Danny Collins), Bombalurina (Taylor Swift) and Rumpleteazer (Naoimh Morgan) in “Cats,” co-written and directed by Tom Hooper.

Taylor Swift as Bombalurina in “Cats,” co-written and directed by Tom Hooper.

Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella in “Cats,” co-written and directed by Tom Hooper.

Francesca Hayward as Victoria in “Cats,” co-written and directed by Tom Hooper.

(from left) Macavity (Idris Elba) and Victoria (Francesca Hayward, back to camera) in “Cats,” co-written and directed by Tom Hooper.

Idris Elba as Macavity in “Cats,” co-written and directed by Tom Hooper.

Ian McKellen as Gus the Theatre Cat in “Cats,” co-written and directed by Tom Hooper.

Francesca Hayward as Victoria in “Cats,” co-written and directed by Tom Hooper.

“Cats” isn’t for everyone – much of it is a cheesy, B-grade affair seemingly crafted solely to take over midnight-movie slots from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,’ Those with an open mind, though, as well as little kids and the T-Swift posse, might find it somewhat pawesome.” Brian Truitt writes in USA Today, in the most positive review I could find. He’s enchanted by Taylor Swift, but turned off by the “nightmare fuel…when human faces are put on tiny mice and Rockette-esque cockroaches.”

More typical is Manohla Dargis in the New York Times:

“It is tough to pinpoint when the kitschapalooza called “Cats” reaches its zenith or its nadir, which are one and the same. The choices are legion: Judi Dench gliding in as Old Deuteronomy, a Yoda-esque fluff ball with a huge ruff who brings to mind the Cowardly Lion en route to a drag ball as Queen Elizabeth I; the tap dancing Skimbleshanks (Steven McRae), dressed, unlike most of the furries — in red pants and suspenders, no less — leading a Pied Piper parade; or Taylor Swift, as Bombalurina, executing a joyless burlesque shimmy after descending on the scene astride a crescent moon that ejaculates iridescent catnip…. there’s nothing new about the movies’ energetic embrace of bad taste…”

And then there’s Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune: “It presents your best and presumably final opportunity to witness Sir Ian McKellen, Jennifer Hudson, Idris Elba and Taylor Swift in whiskers and digital fur. Is it the worst film of 2019, or simply the most recent misfire of 2019? Reader, I swear on a stack of pancakes: “Cats” cannot be beat for sheer folly and misjudgment and audience-reaction-to-“Springtime for Hitler”-in-“The Producers” stupefaction…..Audiences unfamiliar with the material may be stunned to learn how little there is to “Cats,” not just in terms of narrative but in terms of everything besides narrative.”

“The King’s Speech” director Tom Hooper’s outlandishly tacky interpretation seems destined to become one of those once-in-a-blue-moon embarrassments that mars the résumés of great actors” — Peter Debruge, Variety

“Cat-tastrophic” — David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“…basically two hours of stray cats introducing themselves..” — Jake Cole, Slant

The plot:

It’s the annual night of the Jellicle Ball for a tribe of Jellicle cats, and one of them – “the Jellicle choice” – will be picked by wise Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench) to be reborn into a new life.

Georgina Pazcoguin as Victoria

Leona Lewis as Grizabella

My review of the 2016 Broadway revival:

The first Broadway revival of Cats, which is neither wholly reimagined nor an exact replica of the original, is unlikely to turn off Cats-lovers, nor win over Cats-loathers. It works best as a showcase for the energetic young cast and what it does best – which is dance. As Mistoffelees, 20-year-old stand-out Ricky Ubeda, season winner of the TV competition So You Think You Can Dance, delivers an athletic solo turn late in Act II clearly tailor-made for his talents. While director Trevor Nunn and set and costume designer John Napier more or less recreate their work from the original production, new lighting designer Natasha Katz adds her own touches, as does Andy Blankenbuehler, the Tony-winning choreographer of Hamilton. Although the program carefully credits his work as based on the original choreography by Gillian Lynne, anybody who’s seen Hamilton will recognize Blankenbuehler’s signature moves, including some hip rhythmic bending from the ensemble, but the dancing is most marked by its variety, from jazz to rock to ballet. If the lyrics are largely lost in the swirl, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s score holds up. The performances, though, are uneven. Pop star Leona Lewis, as Grizabella, has the voice for Memory, but captures none of the character’s complexity – the quality dignity mixed with pathos that Elaine Page and Betty Buckley brought to the role.

  Cats Movie: Pics and Reviews “Cats” isn’t for everyone – much of it is a cheesy, B-grade affair seemingly crafted solely to take over midnight-movie slots from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,' Those with an open mind, though, as well as little kids and the T-Swift posse, might find it somewhat pawesome." …

[itsfinancethings]

December 18, 2019 at 11:51PM

A movie can be transfixing without exactly being good. You might want to sneak back to see it twice, or six or seven times, yet you’re reluctant to recommend it to your friends. You remind yourself that bad taste is better than no taste. And for the eighth time, or perhaps the ninth, you return to Tom Hooper’s sometimes tacky, sometimes overworked, and yet often strangely beautiful Cats.

Who needs a CGI movie version of the outrageously popular, long-running musical featuring songs by incessant tune generator Andrew Lloyd Webber, which were themselves adapted liberally from a slim volume of light verse published in 1939 by T.S. Eliot, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats? I certainly thought I didn’t, and perhaps you think you don’t either. In the months leading to its release—or at least since summer, when a making-of promotional video introduced the world to the highly scientific concept of “digital fur technology”—Cats has become one of the most eagerly anticipated and joyously maligned pictures of the holiday season. As people gazed at trailers for the film, straining to reckon with the vision of nude-looking cat people prancing around in fur that looked as if it had been airbrushed onto their skin, a collective wordless cry rang out through the Internet. It sounded like “Eww.”

But once you’re immersed in the full-strength version of Cats, you begin to view the fur-skin epidermal surface covering of its principals as normal, and this is when you know you’ve gone too far to be saved. The plot is dumb: A shy white kitten is dumped by terrible rich people in the middle of a London street. Her name is Victoria—she’s played by movie newcomer Francesca Hayward, a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet—and she’s welcomed by the other street cats, a tribe known as Jellicles, with curiosity and protectiveness. The members of this ragtag little group—including ringleader Munkustrap (Robbie Fairchild), suave street troubadour Rum Tum Tugger (Jason Derulo) and a whole litter of others—dance around Victoria, and with her, as they fill her in on their signature custom: On the night of the Jellicle Moon, they hold a Jellicle Ball, where one special Jellicle is chosen by the Jellicles’ grand dame, Old Deuteronomy (a regal Judi Dench, channeling more than a few whiffs of Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion). This honor is called the Jellicle Choice, which may sound like the title of a ‘70s horror movie starring Samantha Eggar but is really at least slightly more benign: It just means the chosen Jellicle gets to float off into the sky to lead a new life.

But there is evil afoot in Jellicleville: The scheming mack daddy known as Macavity (an outrageously seductive Idris Elba) is trying to sabotage the event by cat-napping Jellicles and transporting them to a barge on the Thames. (The ruffian who guards them is Ray Winstone’s shaggy, snarling Growltiger.) And he has already ruined the life of one Jellicle: Grizabella (Jennifer Hudson) drifts mournfully through the streets, draped in a ragged fur wrap, a tragic fallen angel. Scorned by the other cats for going off with Macavity, who then ruined her, she sings a very sad-sounding song called “Memory,” whose lyrics make absolutely no sense.

Some parts of Cats, like the scene in which Taylor Swift’s kitty chanteuse Bombalurina descends from a hanging crescent moon to sprinkle glitter catnip over her feline admirers, are gaudily enjoyable. Some parts are just clever in a trying-too-hard way, like a scene in which Rebel Wilson, as marmalade house guardian Jennyanydots, presides over a birthday cake decorated with singing, dancing cockroaches outfitted like Busby Berkeley dancers—the sequence screams “fun” so loudly that it ceases to be fun.

But the production design, courtesy of Eve Stewart, is marvelous, a fantasy world that riffs, astutely, on the 1970s nostalgia for all things 1920s: There’s an Egyptian-themed theater filled with cat statues, and an art deco Milk Bar that looks like it might have been lifted from the short-lived but legendary 1970s London department store Biba, a palace of commerce made up of extravagantly decorated, themed departments. (The movie also owes a debt to Ken Russell’s mad, art-deco-rococo 1971 extravaganza The Boy Friend.) And the dancing, choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler—who won a Tony for Hamilton—is wonderful, a swirl of action abetted by the twirling of tails and the twitching of ears that, surprisingly, rarely feels manic. The sequence featuring the French dance duo Les Twins is a particular delight, a sinuous, scrappy routine with a scruff of elegance around its edges.

But Hayward’s Victoria is the movie’s one true star. Her agility and poise are captivating; if much of Cats is bad-good, she’s nothing but good-good. Over the years, plenty of people have noted the not-so-subtle eroticism of Cats: This was a show, and now a movie, in which dancers slither around sensuously, rubbing their pheromones all over one another’s cheeks. And there’s no doubt Victoria has the most alluring digital-fur costume, a sleek coating of whipped vanilla dashed with pale butterscotch stripes. She does look sort of naked, in a Marilyn Monroe-style, Happy Birthday Mr. President kind of way.

But it’s all innocent enough, especially once you enter the enchanted forest of Hayward’s dancing. There’s precision in her every movement, though nothing ever feels calculated—Hayward expresses Victoria’s sense of wonder, as a newcomer into this particular feline society, with an exuberant leap here, a gracefully curved arm there. Her face is part of the dance: The open-hearted eagerness of her expression suits her character perfectly—all that digital-fur-technology folderol melts away in the context of her realness. Hayward is the very best thing about Cats, a movie that, like cats themselves, is otherwise filled with contradictions. Cats is terrible, but it’s also kind of great. And, to cat-burgle a phrase from Eliot himself, there’s nothing at all to be done about that.

[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

Broke: Cats 2019 is too sexual

Woke: Cats 2019 toned down the sexuality of the original and now it’s just awkward

One of my favorite criticisms of CATS 2019: “it’s so unnecessarily sexy!”

Me, an intellectual who has actually seen the stage production (1998 vid): um... no, it really isn’t...

[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

Cats 1986 (and Others) vs. 2016

A post I made a few months ago comparing information gathered from interviews with different Cats casts has come up again recently and I’ve heard even more interviews since, so I want to add on to that a little and elaborate on the things I’ve already said.

CW: Some of the language regarding Demeter’s backstory is a bit darker than I’ve previously mentioned

So, I’ve now heard interviews from US Tours III, IV, and V, spanning from 1986 to 2012. They’re all Broadway-based, and the Broadway Revival went in a very different direction, but the three tours were all very similar to each other.

In both the tours and in 2016, the cast was sat down before rehearsals to hear the “story of Cats”. However, this meant two completely different things. The Tour casts were told the plot of the show, who their characters were and what they were meant to be doing. The 2016 was told the story of how the show Cats was created, how ALW had the idea and made a show out of it. No mention of the story and characters. This means that the Tour casts were given useful information for building their characters, while the 2016 cast got something that was interesting but did nothing to help them do their jobs in the present. More emphasis was put on the show’s legacy than on how to actually perform it. Trevor Nunn did the 2016 explaining, I believe, and it sounds like he was on an ego trip, talking about what he did instead of what the cast was supposed to do. Trevor Nunn is one of the few people who knows how the show works, so this is quite frustrating.

Though the Tour cast was given a whole story, most of them only remembered the perspectives of their own characters. The point of learning the plot was so that they knew what they were doing. It wasn’t supposed to matter to the audience. So, everyone mainly focused on their own jobs. But, everyone knew Demeter’s backstory, because it was the first thing they were told and it caught their attention. It almost became a meme that the first sentence of the plot was “Demeter was raped by Macavity”.

The story begins with Demeter having just escaped from Macavity. He kidnapped and raped her. Though she didn’t want it, she kind of enjoyed the sex, which messed with her head quite a bit. Bomba went through the exact same thing, but because she enjoyed it, she acts like the whole thing was nothing more than an annoyance. The two react to the same situation in different ways.

Jacob Brent was either given a toned down version of the story (he mentions kidnapping, but not rape), or he chose to give a toned down version to avoid the uncomfortable subject. 

The 2016 knew that Macavity and Demeter had some sort of backstory, but they weren’t very clear on exactly what happened. They decided that they’d had an abusive relationship, but that the whole thing was consensual and there was no kidnapping, because the only element of this story that the audience can pick up without context is that there was some sort of sexual relationship between Macavity and Demeter, but she’s now afraid of him.

At least one cast member said that Macavity was a rapist, but she didn’t elaborate.

This messed with Demeter’s character far more than anyone expected. The rape element honestly isn’t necessary. Demeter and Macavity had some sort of sex, but it could’ve been consensual, with Demeter enjoying the sex but hating the man. That’s actually what Gillian Lynne seemed to have implied in interviews. However, the kidnapping part of the backstory is important, because it establishes the connection between Demeter and Grizabella. While hiding from Macavity, right before the story begins, Demeter sees Grizabella on the Bad Side of Town. Due to not being a Jellicle before this night, she doesn’t know who she is, and therefore has no bias against her. She just sees this woman living on the streets, humans wondering aloud why she isn’t dead, and felt sympathy for her. 

So, when Grizabella appears at the ball and everyone hates her, Demeter wants to intervene, but she doesn’t want to upset her new friends. She came to the Jellicles for protection and is afraid of them rejecting her for siding with their enemy. Still, she tells the tribe what she knows about Griz, possibly trying to convince them to be nicer to her, but it doesn’t work and Demeter just starts following the crowd.

The lyrics Demeter sings, by themselves, are musical exposition that doesn’t imply sympathy. A line like “You’d really have thought she’d ought to be dead” sounds like it could be played as an insult. The words can either mean “I’m surprising the poor thing’s still alive in her condition” or “Why can’t the bitch fuck off and die already?”. Without the context of Demeter’s backstory, Kim Faure picked the latter, when with the context, it’s clearly meant to be the former. So, Demeter’s delivery of her lines in Glamour Cat in 2016 is venomous, almost sadistic.

Later on, towards the end of act one, 2016 Demeter reaches out to Grizabella like she does in most other versions, despite the earlier delivery. What made her change gears? I have no idea.

So, there was a lot of insight on Demeter. She’s the character with the most detailed backstory, making her the closest thing the show has to a protagonist. 

Another character that gets a lot of attention, as he demands, is Tugger. Many Tugger actors were interviewed. I think he’s the favorite character of the host of the podcast. Different Tuggers from different eras responded to certain topics differently. Tuggers from the 1980s were unaware that Tugger was commonly interpreted as Not Straight and that Tuggoffelees is a thing. But, the more recent the show their from, the more they’re aware of and interested in the topic. The Tour V Tugger joined very late, during the last few years of the tour. He had access to the internet and could see what the fandom was up to. He played Tugger as ambiguously bi and, though he hadn’t thought of it at the time, liked the idea of the Tuggoffelees pairing. Tyler Hanes, 2016 Tugger, was the only one interviewed who played Tuggoffelees on purpose.

Tyler Hanes was very interesting. He watched the 1998 film while preparing for the role and didn’t seem to like it very much. He wanted his version of Tugger to be his own and avoided taking inspiration from any other version. John Partridge’s Tugger and Hanes’ Tugger being so different from each other might’ve been deliberate.

But, the choreography is what really messed with Tugger’s character. The host of the podcast mentioned Tugger’s pelvic thrusts and Hanes said that he wanted to do that sort of thing, but the new choreography removed all of it. He couldn’t make Tugger as horny or sexy as he wanted to. It was a key part of the character, but the choreography just wouldn’t let it happen. The result is that a bunch of queens fangirl over Tugger, but because Tugger’s defining trait in his number is being vain and obnoxious, the reason why he, of all toms, is considering the sexiest is completely lost. He’s just a dick to everyone (except Misto) and they love him anyway. 

Other Tuggers do act like assholes during the number, but it’s not the focus. The lyrics are about Tugger being difficult, but the choreography, often to a comedic degree, isn’t about that. The message of Lynne’s choreography is that DESPITE Tugger being obnoxious, he’s a sex god and that’s what matters to his fans. Blankenbuehlers’s choreography mainly focuses on Tugger being obnoxious, which is a better match to the lyrics, but it makes the character less likable.

Also, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The two most sexualized numbers are Tugger’s and Macavity’s. Tugger’s number is about a man being sexy. Macavity’s number has two women being sexy. Blankenbuehler redid Tugger’s number, toning down the sexuality, but he left Macavity alone completely, so it’s as sexual as it always is. Male sexuality needs to be toned down, but female sexuality is fine. This is what happens when a woman is replaced with a straight dude. I doubt it was done on purpose, but there was definitely some subconscious bias going on there.

The way the casts talk about the two choreographers is also different. Both of them are treated as the experts on the show, more like how a director is normally treated. But, how well they filled that role varied. Lynne could explain what every single move meant. Those who worked with her knew exactly what they were doing. Nobody has ever described any of Blankenbuehler’s choreography with the same detail. In numbers in 2016 that Blankenbuehler left alone, even without Lynne present at all, everything was clearly explained. Skimble actors, since Skimble’s number wasn’t altered much, describe people who’d worked with Lynne talking them through the choreography. No one talked about Blankenbuehler’s work like that. Every move of Lynne’s Jellicle Ball apparently represented something. Blankenbuehler’s Jellicle Ball looks fine, but there isn’t that level of detail.

The rehearsals of the the choreography were paced differently as well. 2016 was apparently put together in something of a hurry. Most Cats rehearsals begin with several days of the cast studying cats and learning how to move like them. 2016 devoted only a few hours to this. Gillian Lynne reportedly visited a rehearsal and was upset the none of the dancers knew how to move like cats. Cats has unique choreography in a unique cat-like style, but the 2016 team had no time to practice it, so they often come across as a bit too human. They’re talented human dancers, but they’re not very cat-like. Blankenbuehler’s choreography is often in a different, more modern urban style, that doesn’t seem like it was done with cat-like movement in mind.

I don’t hate Blankenbuehler. In behind the scenes stuff, he seems like a nice guy that the team liked working with. But, I don’t think he really understood what his role was. He was a choreographer and he did choreography. This would’ve been fine, even great for any other show, but not Cats.

Most modern musical theatre is based on opera. Characters sing about their feelings and that tells the story. The added element of dance takes the feelings of the song and amplifies them. The actors are emoting with their entire bodies in a larger-than-life way that creates an emotional intensity that audiences can empathize with. The music makes the audience feel what the characters are feeling in a way nothing else really can. Music is kind of magical. You hear a certain melody with certain instruments, and suddenly you’re happy, or sad, or angry.

This, by the way, is why going for realism in musicals is a terrible idea. Musicals don’t exist in physical reality. They exist on an emotional level that realism takes away from.

Cats rarely works like opera. The lyrics are mainly just adaptations of whimsical poems, so they don’t tell you much of anything. Memory, which features original lyrics and no dancing is an exception to this rule. In general, because they’re not dance roles, Grizabella and Old Deuteronomy have to use music and song lyrics to play their parts in the story. Jemima also does this whenever she does something connected to either one of them.

But, Cats is normally more of a ballet than an opera. Ballet tells a story purely through dance. Because the lyrics in Cats matter so rarely, it ends up working like a ballet, because the dance, unrelated to the poems, means something. It’s still a heightened reality where music invokes emotions and actors emote with their whole bodies, like in other musicals, but instead of the dance being an amplifier, it’s the storyteller.

ALW really liked a bunch of poems and wanted to put them to music. The result was a bunch of songs with a similar them but no real connection to each other. That works as a concept album, but Webber wanted a musical, an actual show where people danced to his concept album. He didn’t care about the story and didn’t expect anyone else to.

But, other people cared about the story. No one knew how to make a musical that’s not about something. Trevor Nunn added Memory and the storyline with Grizabella as an emotional centerpiece. There wasn’t a clear plot, but, on an emotional level, it now felt like something was actually happening. Gillian Lynne had no idea how to choreograph a musical about nothing, so she didn’t. She came up with her own interpretations of things and made the show about something. Several somethings, in fact. Victoria is going through puberty and discovering her sexuality. Demeter is recovering from an abusive sexual experience, with Bomba having a different attitude towards being in the same situation. The women in the story were given detailed story arcs that often revolved around their sexuality.

How sexuality is portrayed in Cats could be its own essay. 

Anyway, Cats tells its story with a unique style of choreography. Because the choreographer is the story teller, Lynne had a lot of influence over the show. She was the one who knew all the details. Blankenbuehler was brought in to choreograph a show, like a normal job for him, not knowing what that would actually mean. He came in to have dance amplify the emotions in the song lyrics like in any other musical, not knowing that that’s impossible to do with Cats. The role of choreographer meant a level of knowledge and control that would normally belong to the director, composer, and lyricist. He didn’t realize that the show having any story at all depended on him.

So, he did stuff that looked cool, but didn’t tell the story, or that took the story in a direction that it wasn’t supposed to go. Tugger dancing in front of a giant mirror is funny in the moment, but that sort of narcissism, though funny, isn’t likable, and Tugger needs to be likable. He’s a major character and he helps save the day at the end by hyping up Misto. But, 2016 Tugger hypes up Misto because if feels like Misto is the only cat he truly respects. He has the same respect for Old Deuteronomy that the others have, but he doesn’t sound quite as sincere when he sings about him. He spends so much of his number antagonizing Munkustrap in particular that it’s hard to believe that he has any respect for him.

What can be learned from these interviews is that Blankenbuehler didn’t know what his job truly was and was there because someone important thought Cats would be more popular in 2016 if it was more like Hamilton and got the Hamilton guy to give it a make-over. Nunn was so proud of the show’s success that he neglected what made it successful in the first place, and the 2016 cast was rushed through rehearsals without proper instructions. Everyone tried their best, but they were all stuck.

For the most part, I blame whoever decided to have Blankenbuehler rechoreograph the show. Blankenbuehler did what he thought his job was and the cast did their jobs to the best of their ability. What really ruined Cats 2016 was an executive decision to fix something that wasn’t broken, believing if they made the Old Big Show more like the New Big Show, that would make people love it again. But Hamilton is no more like Cats than a cat is like a dog.

[newstechreviews]

A movie can be transfixing without exactly being good. You might want to sneak back to see it twice, or six or seven times, yet you’re reluctant to recommend it to your friends. You remind yourself that bad taste is better than no taste. And for the eighth time, or perhaps the ninth, you return to Tom Hooper’s sometimes tacky, sometimes overworked, and yet often strangely beautiful Cats.

Who needs a CGI movie version of the outrageously popular, long-running musical featuring songs by incessant tune generator Andrew Lloyd Webber, which were themselves adapted liberally from a slim volume of light verse published in 1939 by T.S. Eliot, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats? I certainly thought I didn’t, and perhaps you think you don’t either. In the months leading to its release—or at least since summer, when a making-of promotional video introduced the world to the highly scientific concept of “digital fur technology”—Cats has become one of the most eagerly anticipated and joyously maligned pictures of the holiday season. As people gazed at trailers for the film, straining to reckon with the vision of nude-looking cat people prancing around in fur that looked as if it had been airbrushed onto their skin, a collective wordless cry rang out through the Internet. It sounded like “Eww.”

But once you’re immersed in the full-strength version of Cats, you begin to view the fur-skin epidermal surface covering of its principals as normal, and this is when you know you’ve gone too far to be saved. The plot is dumb: A shy white kitten is dumped by terrible rich people in the middle of a London street. Her name is Victoria—she’s played by movie newcomer Francesca Hayward, a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet—and she’s welcomed by the other street cats, a tribe known as Jellicles, with curiosity and protectiveness. The members of this ragtag little group—including ringleader Munkustrap (Robbie Fairchild), suave street troubadour Rum Tum Tugger (Jason Derulo) and a whole litter of others—dance around Victoria, and with her, as they fill her in on their signature custom: On the night of the Jellicle Moon, they hold a Jellicle Ball, where one special Jellicle is chosen by the Jellicles’ grand dame, Old Deuteronomy (a regal Judi Dench, channeling more than a few whiffs of Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion). This honor is called the Jellicle Choice, which may sound like the title of a ‘70s horror movie starring Samantha Eggar but is really at least slightly more benign: It just means the chosen Jellicle gets to float off into the sky to lead a new life.

But there is evil afoot in Jellicleville: The scheming mack daddy known as Macavity (an outrageously seductive Idris Elba) is trying to sabotage the event by cat-napping Jellicles and transporting them to a barge on the Thames. (The ruffian who guards them is Ray Winstone’s shaggy, snarling Growltiger.) And he has already ruined the life of one Jellicle: Grizabella (Jennifer Hudson) drifts mournfully through the streets, draped in a ragged fur wrap, a tragic fallen angel. Scorned by the other cats for going off with Macavity, who then ruined her, she sings a very sad-sounding song called “Memory,” whose lyrics make absolutely no sense.

Some parts of Cats, like the scene in which Taylor Swift’s kitty chanteuse Bombalurina descends from a hanging crescent moon to sprinkle glitter catnip over her feline admirers, are gaudily enjoyable. Some parts are just clever in a trying-too-hard way, like a scene in which Rebel Wilson, as marmalade house guardian Jennyanydots, presides over a birthday cake decorated with singing, dancing cockroaches outfitted like Busby Berkeley dancers—the sequence screams “fun” so loudly that it ceases to be fun.

But the production design, courtesy of Eve Stewart, is marvelous, a fantasy world that riffs, astutely, on the 1970s nostalgia for all things 1920s: There’s an Egyptian-themed theater filled with cat statues, and an art deco Milk Bar that looks like it might have been lifted from the short-lived but legendary 1970s London department store Biba, a palace of commerce made up of extravagantly decorated, themed departments. (The movie also owes a debt to Ken Russell’s mad, art-deco-rococo 1971 extravaganza The Boy Friend.) And the dancing, choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler—who won a Tony for Hamilton—is wonderful, a swirl of action abetted by the twirling of tails and the twitching of ears that, surprisingly, rarely feels manic. The sequence featuring the French dance duo Les Twins is a particular delight, a sinuous, scrappy routine with a scruff of elegance around its edges.

But Hayward’s Victoria is the movie’s one true star. Her agility and poise are captivating; if much of Cats is bad-good, she’s nothing but good-good. Over the years, plenty of people have noted the not-so-subtle eroticism of Cats: This was a show, and now a movie, in which dancers slither around sensuously, rubbing their pheromones all over one another’s cheeks. And there’s no doubt Victoria has the most alluring digital-fur costume, a sleek coating of whipped vanilla dashed with pale butterscotch stripes. She does look sort of naked, in a Marilyn Monroe-style, Happy Birthday Mr. President kind of way.

But it’s all innocent enough, especially once you enter the enchanted forest of Hayward’s dancing. There’s precision in her every movement, though nothing ever feels calculated—Hayward expresses Victoria’s sense of wonder, as a newcomer into this particular feline society, with an exuberant leap here, a gracefully curved arm there. Her face is part of the dance: The open-hearted eagerness of her expression suits her character perfectly—all that digital-fur-technology folderol melts away in the context of her realness. Hayward is the very best thing about Cats, a movie that, like cats themselves, is otherwise filled with contradictions. Cats is terrible, but it’s also kind of great. And, to cat-burgle a phrase from Eliot himself, there’s nothing at all to be done about that.

[itsfinancethings]

A movie can be transfixing without exactly being good. You might want to sneak back to see it twice, or six or seven times, yet you’re reluctant to recommend it to your friends. You remind yourself that bad taste is better than no taste. And for the eighth time, or perhaps the ninth, you return to Tom Hooper’s sometimes tacky, sometimes overworked, and yet often strangely beautiful Cats.

Who needs a CGI movie version of the outrageously popular, long-running musical featuring songs by incessant tune generator Andrew Lloyd Webber, which were themselves adapted liberally from a slim volume of light verse published in 1939 by T.S. Eliot, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats? I certainly thought I didn’t, and perhaps you think you don’t either. In the months leading to its release—or at least since summer, when a making-of promotional video introduced the world to the highly scientific concept of “digital fur technology”—Cats has become one of the most eagerly anticipated and joyously maligned pictures of the holiday season. As people gazed at trailers for the film, straining to reckon with the vision of nude-looking cat people prancing around in fur that looked as if it had been airbrushed onto their skin, a collective wordless cry rang out through the Internet. It sounded like “Eww.”

But once you’re immersed in the full-strength version of Cats, you begin to view the fur-skin epidermal surface covering of its principals as normal, and this is when you know you’ve gone too far to be saved. The plot is dumb: A shy white kitten is dumped by terrible rich people in the middle of a London street. Her name is Victoria—she’s played by movie newcomer Francesca Hayward, a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet—and she’s welcomed by the other street cats, a tribe known as Jellicles, with curiosity and protectiveness. The members of this ragtag little group—including ringleader Munkustrap (Robbie Fairchild), suave street troubadour Rum Tum Tugger (Jason Derulo) and a whole litter of others—dance around Victoria, and with her, as they fill her in on their signature custom: On the night of the Jellicle Moon, they hold a Jellicle Ball, where one special Jellicle is chosen by the Jellicles’ grand dame, Old Deuteronomy (a regal Judi Dench, channeling more than a few whiffs of Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion). This honor is called the Jellicle Choice, which may sound like the title of a ‘70s horror movie starring Samantha Eggar but is really at least slightly more benign: It just means the chosen Jellicle gets to float off into the sky to lead a new life.

But there is evil afoot in Jellicleville: The scheming mack daddy known as Macavity (an outrageously seductive Idris Elba) is trying to sabotage the event by cat-napping Jellicles and transporting them to a barge on the Thames. (The ruffian who guards them is Ray Winstone’s shaggy, snarling Growltiger.) And he has already ruined the life of one Jellicle: Grizabella (Jennifer Hudson) drifts mournfully through the streets, draped in a ragged fur wrap, a tragic fallen angel. Scorned by the other cats for going off with Macavity, who then ruined her, she sings a very sad-sounding song called “Memory,” whose lyrics make absolutely no sense.

Some parts of Cats, like the scene in which Taylor Swift’s kitty chanteuse Bombalurina descends from a hanging crescent moon to sprinkle glitter catnip over her feline admirers, are gaudily enjoyable. Some parts are just clever in a trying-too-hard way, like a scene in which Rebel Wilson, as marmalade house guardian Jennyanydots, presides over a birthday cake decorated with singing, dancing cockroaches outfitted like Busby Berkeley dancers—the sequence screams “fun” so loudly that it ceases to be fun.

But the production design, courtesy of Eve Stewart, is marvelous, a fantasy world that riffs, astutely, on the 1970s nostalgia for all things 1920s: There’s an Egyptian-themed theater filled with cat statues, and an art deco Milk Bar that looks like it might have been lifted from the short-lived but legendary 1970s London department store Biba, a palace of commerce made up of extravagantly decorated, themed departments. (The movie also owes a debt to Ken Russell’s mad, art-deco-rococo 1971 extravaganza The Boy Friend.) And the dancing, choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler—who won a Tony for Hamilton—is wonderful, a swirl of action abetted by the twirling of tails and the twitching of ears that, surprisingly, rarely feels manic. The sequence featuring the French dance duo Les Twins is a particular delight, a sinuous, scrappy routine with a scruff of elegance around its edges.

But Hayward’s Victoria is the movie’s one true star. Her agility and poise are captivating; if much of Cats is bad-good, she’s nothing but good-good. Over the years, plenty of people have noted the not-so-subtle eroticism of Cats: This was a show, and now a movie, in which dancers slither around sensuously, rubbing their pheromones all over one another’s cheeks. And there’s no doubt Victoria has the most alluring digital-fur costume, a sleek coating of whipped vanilla dashed with pale butterscotch stripes. She does look sort of naked, in a Marilyn Monroe-style, Happy Birthday Mr. President kind of way.

But it’s all innocent enough, especially once you enter the enchanted forest of Hayward’s dancing. There’s precision in her every movement, though nothing ever feels calculated—Hayward expresses Victoria’s sense of wonder, as a newcomer into this particular feline society, with an exuberant leap here, a gracefully curved arm there. Her face is part of the dance: The open-hearted eagerness of her expression suits her character perfectly—all that digital-fur-technology folderol melts away in the context of her realness. Hayward is the very best thing about Cats, a movie that, like cats themselves, is otherwise filled with contradictions. Cats is terrible, but it’s also kind of great. And, to cat-burgle a phrase from Eliot himself, there’s nothing at all to be done about that.

[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

I think the hip hop stuff was added because the main reason Blankenbuehler was brought in was because of his work on Hamilton. They wanted to make the old popular musical more like a new popular musical in order to make people interested in it again. But, one of the things that made Cats big is that the choreography was unique, more based on cat-like movement than sticking to a specific genre. I see more ballet in it than anything else, but I’m not at all an expert on dance. But, the important thing with Cats is cat-like movement, which hip hop isn’t a good fit for. Cats isn’t Hamilton.

As for the point scoring thing, I’d love to see something like that. I’ve been critiquing things based on a combination of what feels right and what people involved in other productions of the show have said, but I don’t actually know a lot about choreography, and a choreographer’s opinion would be great!

As a choreographer, the Cats 2019 Movie was a disaster and I’ve seen bootlegs of the Mistofelees Broadway revival. Same choreographer. Andy, I swear.

Also they had Ricky Ubeda as Mistofelees. I’ve heard he’s extremely talented. So why waste him on that. USE THE ORIGINAL CHOREOGRAPHY. LET HIM DO THE CONJURING TURNS.