#jelliclerants

[millenari]

[leans into the mic] right before Memory Jemima sings the lines, "See the dew on a sunflower / And a rose that is fading / Roses wither away. / Like the sunflower, / I yearn to turn my face to the dawn". Roses have historically been linked to beauty, romance, and passion while sunflowers are often associated with joy, positivity, and resilience due to their bright coloring and unique ability to turn towards the sunlight that nourishes them. One might argue that Jemima bringing up the 'fading' rose shortly before comparing herself to a sunflower is her rejecting the temporary allure of vanity and appearance-driven passion -as she has learned from Grizabella that such things grow meaningless and 'wither' over time- and embracing the nature of the sunflower, which remains both joyful and strong, specifically by virtue of actively embracing what it is given.

Additionally the lyric she sings with Grizabella in the middle of the song goes, "Like a flower as the dawn is breaking / The memory is fading," perhaps signifying Jemima suggesting to Grizabella that the memories which have driven her for so long are just as temporary and just as empty as the fading rose (perhaps further supported by her referencing 'endless masquerading' in the previous line), and that she must also 'turn her face to the sun' and actively seek that which she needs, granting her the strength to get up one last time and make her case to the Jellicles that she deserves acceptance and forgiveness- and in exchange for their acknowledgement of her pain she will share her own lifetime of joy and optimism that the sunflower embodies unceasingly. In this essay I will make no further clarification because I have no idea where I was going with this.

[millenari]

if you aren't tired of "bitching" about the broadway revival, what are your thoughts on the changes to tugger's number? i find a lot of the characterization in the choreography got destroyed but i'd like to hear your take

My first problem with Tugger's number happens before the song even starts.

It's that little bit they changed, where Munk sings the 'Jellicles ask because Jellicles dare / who will it be?' and then Tugger echoes him for the start of his song. I get why they added that bit (to strengthen the plot, to remind the audience that the Jellicle Choice is the point of all of this) but I've mentioned why I dislike the idea that the cats are ALL competing for the Choice before, and of all of the cats I think reasonably Tugger ought to be least interested in the honor. So having him echo Munk as if indicating interest in being the Choice is bleh to me.

Believe it or not I don't hate Tugger's new number… I don't like it, but I don't dislike it as much as Jenny's number. Given that John Partridge's Tugger in particular is so iconic & beloved, nothing they were going to do was going to satisfy me (or most of us tbh) and I admire that they tried to go at Tugger's character at another angle instead of trying to blindly recreate something they knew they wouldn't be able to recreate.

That being said. I don't like it. In Cats, the way a cat moves is indicative of their personality. The styles they're assigned speaks of their nature, I mentioned that in the Gumbie post: Jenny has tap because it has more of a militant vibe than flowy ballet. Victoria's very romantic and sensual subplot does get flowy ballet. The dances/songs that Bomba leads are all jazzy and sensual and provocative like her. I could go on. Tugger in particular is based off of the glam rockers of the 70s and 80s. He's a rockstar, and like those rockstar figures he's sexual, provocative, unapologetic, wild, fierce, ambiguously bisexual--

He's confident and horny. Let’s put it at that. And the way he moves and dances reflects that. He doesn't crawl much, (In 98 he doesn't crawl ever I don’t think), he struts when he moves, his 'default' position has his hands on his belt right near his crotch, like a solid 30% of his choreo in Lynne's version is hip thrusts… That's how he's been characterized for a long time. In the Bway revival, they take him in a different, less slutty direction.

& to be frank, you usually would have immediately lost me at 'less slutty' but I'll admit that some of the heavy-eye-contact-plus-pelvic-thrust elements of 98 are a little. Weird. So I do protest removing the sexuality from his number (not only because I'm pro-horny and not only because I respect Gillian Lynne's horndog vision but also because I think it's vastly unfair that the Macavity number is barely touched but this one is toned down pretty aggressively. Even in the Bombadance the female dance is present and just as sexual (you know, the bending over part) but the bit where the boys join in is pretty much removed. Why are women shaking their asses as objects to be admired acceptable but abstract depictions of actual sex/sexual elements aren't? Ugh.) buuuuut I see why they would have wanted to change it. Less slutty doesn't inherently mean less good, after all, right? And he is still a little slutty, it's not like they Kids Bop'd him.

But then they also add this element of insecurity to him. Where original Tugger is oftentimes unshakable, Revival!Tugger tries to slap the shit out of Munk and Alonzo for delivering the 'terrible bore' line (And usually I prefer Misto having this line but plenty of productions give it to these two instead so whatever), he hisses at the group of cats sliding up on him near the end, and you can see him kind of primping in the background when Old Deut is announced, like he's nervous.

This… is fine, I guess. Giving your characters more depth is usually not a bad thing, but I protest Tugger + insecurity on the grounds that

A) Bomba and Demeter's (the main Female Horny Cats) sole interesting skill is apparently flirting, and yet Tugger (the main Male Horny Cat) has to have all these hidden depths, and

B) this element in addition to how they seemed to be deliberately casting (for the bway revival AND us Tour 6) Tugger as younger-sounding and also kind of sillier, he comes off more to me as somebody's lost fratboy who needs therapy instead of a famous star. And it really leaves me questioning why all these characters are supposed to like him so much when, again, he kind of gives the impression of being a bratty frat boy.

So yes, I agree on the characterization. I admire that they tried something new, but I just don't really care for what they tried, and I think the changes actively work against the core of the character, which is: the obnoxious horny guy with so much charisma and confidence that he keeps pulling anyways.

But enough on Tugger, onto the actual song.

I really like the layout of the classic Tugger number because everyone is pretty finely split up by how they think of him. You've got:

his baby fangirls on his left doing their cute little fangirl dance

his hornier, older fans just to his right (Plato in the front) who are doing a dance that's a bit more provocative

his backup buddies on the far right who seem to be less attracted and more deferential to him

a group of cats just behind him doing a dance that strikes me as neither particularly sexual nor particularly platonic (who melt into the previous two groups during certain sections of the song)

the elders in the far back, watching on with disapproval

Bomba, Munk, and Misto, who each watch on alone(ish), indicating perhaps that each of them has a unique relationship to Tugger there.

(Sometimes there are additional watching cats, depending on how the number is set up. In 98, Alonzo also watches him alone, as well as Cori).

But I love how after only a minute or so of watching, you can tell what the majority of the cast thinks of Tugger, and who agrees with who. It's super efficient storytelling. In Broadway Revival Tugger, pretty much everyone is one of Tugger's backup dancers. There are some elements of Elder Disapproval (Jenny standing up to him, Skimble trying to shoo others away) and you can see some sections of the dance are the girls fawning over him while some are the boys backup dancing for him, but they're real quick. The song has a lot of [group of cats do a dance near Tugger] [group of cats move away] [Tugger spends a couple seconds there just kind of doing nothing] [another group of cats come up] [repeat]. Compared to the classic, there's not a lot going on, and yet it still feels more disjointed.

So anyways, the song starts, Tugger poses for Google Earth, (always taking pictures), some cats come and go & backup dance for/with him, Alonzo and Munk do the terrible bore and nearly get slapped for it, Jenny and Skimble try and fail to interrupt, and then Bomba's section happens.

I don't like this part especially; it bothers me that Tugger and Bomba don't really dance with each other during her section. They just sing their lines while staring at each other and kind of walking around. Not only does it feel kind of boring, but I really love that butt-to-butt dance they do in the original, and it makes me so sad that it was removed. [smacks fist against desk] it was SO bisexual. So, so bisexual…. Plus having Bomba kneel in front of Tugger for the following 'nah' is so strange, because honestly it looks more sexual than Tugger dipping her, and makes it way less obvious that he's rejecting her after (potentially) leading her on. I'm not sure a first-time viewer watching from far away would even realize he's saying no to her. Also this section includes the entire(ish) cast lining up behind Tugger in two different ways over the course of like 15 seconds. Why.

Then Tugger admires himself in the mirror after 'Horrible muddle'— which is fine, but I like it less in conjuncture with the self-esteem thing. After that comes the little dance break, which is my favorite part of the whole song.

First, I love having Plato and Victoria doing a little dance in the background, it kind of builds up to their later dance and I think the idea of them bonding over liking Tugger is the cutest. Second, I love the Tuggoff dance that happens at the same time.

It's weird, because a lot of the time I look at the bway changes and I can't really figure out if the new choreo means anything or is trying to say anything the way the original often was. (Like that screenshot I posted just a couple paragraphs up. Why is everyone lining up behind Tugger? To show that they're all on his 'side' in regard to his interaction with Bomba? Why do they do it twice? The answer is probably just 'because it looked cool'. Tragically.) But this little Tuggoff dance is weird because it’s one of the few sections where I can easily make a guess as to what they were trying to say do/say with the choreo. I talked about it in the tags on this post, I won't type it all up again.

Tugger deliberately passing by his attention-hungry fans and grabbing Misto chilling off by himself, and then pulling him into the literal spotlight is just so on point to their relationship I made a post about the same concept not too long ago. Like this whole idea of Misto being the only one to give Tugger the space he needs and Tugger returning that sentiment by giving Misto all of the attention and spotlight he needs, is just. 10/10. No notes.

After that point I don't have much commentary. Everyone dances together for the end: I don't love that part but that's mostly just me not liking the overarching style of the new choreo than anything to do with this number in particular. I also don't like the new ending but I can't really pin down why, so I think it's just me not liking change? I'm not sure.

So yeah, don't love it, don't hate it. I have to say though: I think it's kind of incredible how this choreo has already aged in comparison to the original. The bit after the mirror where Tugger basically nae-naes makes me want to beat my head against the wall due to Cringe, and that choreo is only like 8 years old! The original is nearly 40, and it still stands up fine! It's just wild how much effort they put into making Cats 'modern' and before a decade has passed those changes are already dated!

(Though I think the cats taking a 'selfie' with the big prop camera at the end was kind of hilarious. Maybe we can have some modernization.)

[millenari]

If you’re up to more bitching about the broadway revival, what are your feelings on Jennyanydots’s number? Personally I was surprised with how much I didn’t mind the new stuff at the end (though I wouldn’t say I PREFER it) but I thought the choreo during the verses was… it irritated me. I don’t remember which boot(s) I watched but it felt like Jenny did a lot more sitting, less moving than I remember her doing in the ‘98 and in the older boots I’ve seen. In general I thought the new choreo took her out of her own number a bit, which is a real shame. Just interested to know what you think, would be happy to disagree haha.

hohohoh you're in for it now, anon. I could talk about revival!Jenny for a long, long time...

AND I WILL!

I hate it.

I don't love a lot of the revival changes, but with each song generally there's something I can be positive about? Yeah they removed the horndog parts of Tugger's song, but there's cute tuggoff and platoria dances. Yeah they made all those little changes to Macavity's song but at least they're small. Yeah they changed Misto's choreo, but at least it is admittedly exciting.

Jenny's song? Idk even the spots that aren't bad, I don't think I can point at any element of her new song and say that it isn't a downgrade.

I rewatched it just now, and I'd like to list the parts I do actually like for the sake of being fair:

Andy Huntington Jones? a very cute Munk

That bit with Misto & the little light on the floor which leads to him opening the boot

The Gumbie trio interacting with the 'mice' kittens

you're right, the end is pretty cool

That's it.

Like... let's go over what the '''original''' Jenny song does. Gumbie Cat, like a considerable number of songs in Cats, doesn't really contribute to the plot at all. Some songs do, like Misto's, but many don't. They only thing Jenny's song really 'does', arguably, is tell the audience what Munkustrap's idea of a Jellicle Choice looks like (given his lyrics at the beginning of the song).

So otherwise, all this song does is characterize Jenny.

Which the classic version does very efficiently, I think! The poem gives us an idea of her personality: she's lazy during the day and active during the night. She teaches the local varmints how to be 'upstanding' members of society. It's specifically mentioned she started a 'Beetle's Tattoo' (A tattoo is a military performance of stuff like marching bands, dancing, drill team, etc) so she has this association with a military-esque discipline. The song also talks about her and crocheting and knitting and baking, so she also has this homestead motherly vibe to her as well.

Her nature is two-fold: she's lazy but also hard-working. She's motherly but also militant. The song capitalizes on this dynamic: it starts out with a slow lullaby, and then transitions to an upbeat tune, and then goes back and forth between those two vibes until the Tattoo (aka the tap section) starts. The feeling of the music matches her personality. So does her costume change: at first she has a big floppy coat, then she switches into a flapper-like bodysuit.

The style of the Tattoo is tap, (as we all know lmao). Most songs in Cats build upon ballet, but Jenny uses tap, probably because it's a more ''''aggressive'''' (obv I use that word lightly) style of dance, unlike the flowing and effortless impression ballet tends to give. It matches the military vibe, it seems like something that might actually be in a real Tattoo, and it gives the actress the opportunity to characterize Jenny further by having her act like a little drill sergeant.

(And sometimes the tap battle is included here, which is also nice characterization. It's usually either Misto or a kitten who challenges Jenny, and I think it's hilarious that either A) Misto feels the need to clown on an old lady's tapping skills or B) Jenny rises to the occasion when a literal child tries to clown on her tapping skills. Either way, funny and defining.)

Despite ping-ponging back and forth, the song is well contained. Most of the props are made of garbage: the cockroaches are made from garbage bags, the mice masks are piping bags, the cockroaches hold spoons and forks, etc. The song also builds well: it goes as such.

Munk, alone, introduces Jenny

the Gumbie trio join in, we start ping-ponging

Jenny comes on stage

Jenny stumbles around stage a little as she wakes up

Music builds

Costume change from day Jenny to night Jenny, tone immediately changes.

Cockroaches start coming out

Cockroaches + Jenny dance together

(maybe insert tap battle here)

Music builds up, the Gumbie trio and Munk join in, big happy finale

Tugger interrupts

The revival... sort of follows this pattern. The way the Revival Gumbie was choreographed makes me think of this Blankenbuehler quote that annoyed me.

'mm yes in this play about a tribe theres a lot of tribal energy. in this play about Cats Dancing Together there's a lot of dancing in unison. lets get rid of some of that'

The Revival Gumbie takes forever to get everyone dancing together, and instead of growing momentum-- where characters keep joining the dance and it gets bigger and bigger (starting with just Munk, ending with everyone)-- it feels like a bunch of disjointed nonsense.

The beginning is mostly the same, except you're right, Jenny does do a lot of sitting there. (Also the Gumbie trio has that same thing that the Macavity song has, where they fiddled with their choreo and the changes don't do anything but also aren't that important either)

But the Revival starts to divert after that first section-- instead of the (nearly) full cast wearing cockroach costumes, three (3) characters are given 'beetle' costumes. (Which yeah, the poem mentions beetles, and yeah, the beetle costumes are made of hubcaps so it matches the garbage theme. But they look so unwieldy that the dancers can barely move, and honestly I didn't even realize they were supposed to be beetles until I saw someone on here mention it.)

But yeah, Jenny and the beetles dance together for like 3 seconds, [I just went back to check how long it is exactly? 10 fuckin seconds.] and Jenny changes costumes. It's actually a pretty smooth costume change, because I'm always so busy looking at the hubcap beetles and being annoyed by them I forget to look at Jenny, but honestly classic Cats never really sought to hide/distract from the costume change here, and tbh I feel like that showy deliberate change is relevant to her dual nature? Whatever. Not a big deal.

But anyways so Jenny and the beetles start tapping. Oh, are we going to build on this momentum? Is someone else going to join in? No. That bigass broom prop comes flying in, the beetles go off stage (and probably rip off those huge costumes), and Jenny stops dancing. Then we spend like an honest thirty seconds playing with the broom and then playing with those basketball/soccerball props while pretty much 0 dancing happens on stage at all. Jenny mostly just wanders around during this section (& you're right, she definitely does less in this version).

Then there's the 'tick tock tap' section where that big clock prop in the background makes a bunch of tick-tock noises and Jenny dances to it. While everyone just kind of watches. Which is fine I guess.

The music BUILDS UP, EVERYONE COMES ON STAGE, OH BOY ARE WE FINALLY BUILDING SOME MOMENTUM?

No. Everyone dances for five seconds and then stands there and watches Jenny dance. Some cats are ? scrubbing the floor with brushes like cinderella ?

THE MUSIC BUILDS UP AGAIN EVERYONE IS GETTING IN A LINE OOH NOW THEY'RE SPREADING OUT ARE WE FINALLY GOING TO HAVE OUR BIG FINALE?

Nope pretty much everyone just stops dancing again to watch Jenny. Also Jerrie is breakdancing for some reason.

OKAY NOW EVERYONE IS DANCING TOGETHER! HOORAY! YAHOO!

Then like 15 seconds of dancing later the clock goes off, interrupting the finale, and the song ends.

Yay.

Where classic Gumbie builds up by adding more and more dancers over time, this one just kind of slaps everyone in there and then takes everyone out, a chunk of kittens will join, then leave, a prop will come in and then out, and the Tattoo element that the song was mostly made of is pretty much gone entirely. Instead of one unified piece of choreo, it feels like getting random crap shoved in your face over and over. 'Isn't this cool? Isn't THIS cool? How about this? Or this????'

Then you have the props: only a couple cats wear bug costumes and they don't translate well and look unwieldy. The clock, balls, (tooth?)brushes, and the broom are a disjointed assembly of props. Everything in the classic song characterizes Jenny. These items have nothing to do with her-- they're not even really things you'd find in a Junkyard. What does a clock have to do with Jenny's duality between her militant and motherly nature? What about the balls? With the cleaning stuff, you can at least say she makes the mice and bugs clean, but the poem doesn't mention her making them clean, it mentions 'music, crocheting and tatting', mentions turning them into boyscouts, mentions the Beetles' Tattoo, mentions baking for them, etc.

If the stuff like the balls and the broom were cool enough that I could forgive them being just slapped in there, that'd be one thing. But I got sick of the balls like 5 seconds after they came in, and the broom didn't really do anything for me. The clock wasn't that bad, but I don't know why they took out the Tattoo and instead added these elements. The Tattoo had to do with Jenny's nature, this shit doesn't.

I get why a lot of the tapping was removed, because they added a lot of hip hop and stuff in there and you can't really cast for people who can act, sing, dance ballet, dance tap, and dance hip hop, but regardless of how much tap they decided to use (which is a creative choice, I get it) it just doesn't feel good. It builds to nothing, most of the props say and do nothing interesting, there's big chunks of the song where no dancing happens at all, and there's even bigger chunks where Jenny is the only one dancing and everyone just watches her.

Right after that quote I mentioned earlier, Andy adds, "It’s like that circus in the second grade. It’s completely labor-intensive. You’re choreographing 20 numbers instead of one number."

And like. Yeah, Andy. You're right. This does kind of feel like a circus.

[millenari]

This is what I meant in my last post abt this version of Macavity trying very hard to be simultaneously more and less provocative btw.

It’s kind of fascinating-- there's a big chunk of Cats that does little to no storytelling beyond 'check out this cool character who’s part of the Jellicle club' and yet Macavity is one of the few songs that’s actually trying to tell the audience something vital to the plot: Demeter knows Macavity.

It's important that the audience learns this-- not only that there is a story between those two, but also what that story is. If Cats doesn't establish that connection, then it'll just look like Macavity is snatching up random ensemble cats during his and Munk's fight. This song establishes the connection between Dem and Mac, and gives the audience a big fat reason why Mac is targeting her specifically: their relationship was sexual. You cannot escape from the fact that their relationship was sexual in 98 Macavity.

And this gives Mac a motive! It characterizes him as a villain, it establishes why he's even interrupting the Ball in the first place, it establishes why he targets Demeter, & it establishes why Demeter specifically seems terrified of him. Without the context this song provides, Demeter might as well just be a random ensemble cat who gets the responsibility of yelling 'Macavity' for each scare.

See: Macavity and Demeter had a sexual (maybe romantic) relationship > Macavity wants to get Demeter back > Macavity interrupts the Ball and takes Deuteronomy (and attempts to take her along the way) > Misto has to bring back Deuteronomy. This song sets up a big chunk of what Cats' plot/conflict is.

But tswifts bomba/dem Frankenstein (Demetaylurina if u will) is very obviously not in a relationship with Macavity; she works for him. He's her boss. She's not even a Jellicle, there's no reason we need the relationship between these two cats to be explained to the audience.

The stage play certainly doesn’t bother establishing the relationship between Macavity and the 2-3 henchcats that help him kidnap Deut! Their relationship doesn't matter, Demetaylurina herself doesn't really matter either, all she does is drug the cats (which is its own weird thing, plot-wise) and she only does like 2% of that job, most of it is M&R and the rigged moon prop.

And then you can say 'well she doesn’t matter to the plot but her relationship with Macavity can still be explored, not everything has to be plot-relevant’ which is true, there are big chunks of Cats that’s pretty much just exploration of non-plot-relevant cats' relationships. But the song doesn't explore their relationship. Because their relationship in the movie pretty clearly isn't sexual, and yet Demetaylurina still acts and sings in this provocative manner that (tries to) mirror the stage version. Like I said in the other post, the choreo that slings it in the audience's face that Demeter (and Bomba) had a sexual relationship with Macavity is gone, so their relationship is comparatively pretty sexless. But there's still this sexuality to the song that tswift just tries to jam in there with her voice and sort-of dancing that serves absolutely no storytelling purpose.

All of the sexuality in regular Macavity is very pointed-- both Bomba and Demeter have this sexual tension between themselves & Macavity, which is impressive bc he’s not even present. That 'there’s no one like Macavity' line where Demeter smacks a hand on her inner hip is an excellent example-- and it loses all of its oomph in tswifts version.

By all definitions, if they wanted to rework Bomba/Dem to being Macavity's henchcat instead of his former lover, then the song should've reflected that-- make it a menacing jazzy song like the original M&R!

But they don’t do that. The song is still sexual, or at least it tries to be: instead of the very potent, very pointed sexual aspect between these two characters in the stage play, you get Demetaylurina just kind of putting off sexiness into the world with no target and no goal, it’s just. there. It doesn't have any storytelling aspect to it and frankly it feels like the bargain version of most Demeters and Bombas-- and that's not even a dig at tswift, because again Dem and Bomba actresses are working with this actual story, dynamic, and history that they're given to act out to the audience as vividly as they can. Meanwhile tswift is just. Being sexy. Her character has no background, no meaning, no dynamics with other characters, no history. She’s just there. Being passively sexy.

Except it’s not passive because you can tell she’s trying very hard to come off that way.

It's just… odd and janky.