The score is by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the man who also gave us Phantom of the Opera and global earworms. Here, he set T.S. Eliot’s poetry to music. Yes, you read that right. The show is based on a book of poems about cats from the 1930s.
The result is bizarrely catchy. You will leave the theater humming “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats” even though you have no idea what a “Jellicle” is. (Fun fact: It’s a made-up word Eliot invented from a mispronunciation of “dear little cat.”) The music is surprisingly complex, mixing jazz, opera, and pop into one chaotic, wonderful mess.
The most surprising fact? Cats originally cost only about $5.5 million to produce in 1982. It made over $2 billion worldwide. That’s a return worthy of a Times Square stockbroker, except the investment was in spandex and fake fur.
The Controversy: Yes, the Movie Was a Nightmare
You might remember the 2019 film adaptation starring real actors with CGI fur. It gave people nightmares. The “digital fur technology” made them look like mutated house pets, and the butthole controversy? Yes, they digitally removed cat buttholes, but the movement was still… unsettling.
Let’s be honest: the movie was a trainwreck. But the stage show is a different beast entirely. On stage, it’s a spectacle of dance and costume. The actors are so athletic that you forget they’re playing cats—you just marvel at how they bend like pretzels in unitards.
Info Terkini 10+ Cats Play Musical
