CATS is based of T.S. Elliot’s “Old Possum’s book of Practical Cats” which is used for the musical numbers during the production. The first production of this magical musical took place in the New London Theatre, May 11 1981. Since then the beloved musical has hit Broadway and other theatres all over the world.

As the show opens, the audience has shrunk to the size of a Cat. The cats slowly come out from hiding and begin to sing the song of the Jellicle cats. What is a Jellicle cat, you ask?  A Jellicle cat is nothing more than a Cat, the author T.S. Eliot heard the name “Jellicle” when his niece would call for her “dear little cat” it sounded an awful lot like “Jellicle cat”. So the name stuck as Jellicle Cats.

Munkustrap, the leader cat sings to you, what this musical is all about: it’s about the Jellicle ball and the chosen cat’s journey to the heavy side layer. “Jellicle Cats meet once a year at the Jellicle Ball where we all rejoice! And the Jellicle leader will soon appear and make what is known as the Jellicle choice, when just before dawn, through a silence you feel you could cut with a knife announces the cat who can now be reborn and come back to a different Jellicle life. For waiting up there is the heavy side layer full of wonders one Jellicle only will see and Jellicles ask because Jellicles dare. Who will it be? Who will it be?”

While waiting for Old Deuteronomy, the wisest cat of them all, specific Cats introduce themselves in dance and song and seem to tell stories of their lives to draw you into their characters, so that you too can ask yourself…“Who will it be?” Jennyanydots is sort of the mommy cat, she doesn’t chase the mice or kill the roaches, she merely trains them, teaches them manners and of course how to crochet and knit! The Rum Tum Tugger thinks he is just the best cat of them all. Next comes Bustofer Jones, the fat merry cat! Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer the burglar cats, then finally Old Deuteronomy appears! The cats, overjoyed, then start sharing stories with him over the past year, dance in the Jellicle ball, and share some more stories to pass the time until dawn.

Every Jellicle was family to every Jellicle. Grizabella, who was the most popular cat, was no exception; she even earned the nickname “Glamour Cat.” But she left the tribe of Jellicles a long time ago, to see what it was like in the “human world.” The other Jellicles took this as a sign of betrayal, especially when they saw she hung out with human prostitutes and it was believed she even lived with one. When Grizabella finally returned this year for the annual Jellicle ball, she was shunned, made fun of, and not one of the cats would touch her, for “the border of her coat is torn, and stained with sand.” That kind of living was just not acceptable for a Jellicle cat.

Many more characters are introduced and share with you their story, Skimbleshanks, the railway cat, the magical Mr. Mistoffelees, Gus the Theatre Cat, and Bombalurina and Demeter (sisters) sing a fun jazzy song about Macavity the mystery cat who kidnaps Old Deuteronomy just before the Jellicle Ball. It is said that Victoria, the precious white kitten, is daughter of Bombalurina and Macavity.

Grizabella interrupts the dancing of the Jellicle ball, and sadly again, is shunned. She begins to sing “Memory,” a song about how the memory of her friends is starting to fade. And how she is “all alone in the moonlight” she regrets her past decisions and longs for acceptance from her fellow Jellicles. Jemima and Victoria, kittens, are the first to realize how sorry Grizabella feels and that she is not bad at heart. Realizing how terrible they acted towards Grizabella, they accept her back into the tribe, with the touch of a hand. Old Deuteronomy, watching all of this, sends Grizabella up to the heavy side layer! She comes back with a new Jellicle life.

What I love about “Cats” is that not only how are you enthralled by the dancing, singing, and mystical cats, but also how it contains parallels to Christianity. So many of us are just like Grizabella, we make horrible mistakes and hurt our friends in the process. But when we express to God and those that we hurt (Old Deuteronomy, the other Jellicles) how sorry we are, and how terribly we want forgiveness, he gives us a clean slate, erases it from memory and lets us start over, with a “new Jellicle life”

“The mystical divinity of unashamed felinity round the cathedral rang ‘Vivat, life to the everlasting cat’.”