Macavity, the Mystery Cat

Cats was wonderful, of course*.  This was the third time I've seen it - I took older son and daughter to see it ten years ago (they were 5 and 9), and dear husband and I saw it on Broadway before older son was even a thought.

We've danced to parts of two songs in Broadway dance ("The Jellicle Ball" and "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser") so I enjoyed those songs even more than I did the last time I saw Cats. 

I haven't listened to the soundtrack for a while (we only have it on record and only recently got a new record player) so I forgot about my favorite song to sing with - "Macavity, the Mystery Cat."  It's the jazziest song on the soundtrack.

 

 

* Footnote for Cats fans:  This production had "Growltiger's Last Stand" but omitted "The Awful Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles" - which, since I enjoy the former and have little interest in the latter, suited me just fine. 

Here's the original Newsweek review of Cats - including this interesting quote about Terrence Mann:

Kentucky-born Terrence V. Mann, the hard-rocking Rum Turn Tugger, has spent $6,000 in voice coaching to get rid of his Southern accent. At the North Carolina School of Arts he learned mime, clowning, juggling, acrobatics, jazz dancing and classical acting. The juggling got him into "Barnum," and during one audition for "Cats" Nunn asked him if he had walked the wire. "I told him I did," says Mann, "and that it worked much better if you fell off because then the audience was so with you when you got back on to do it again." Mann describes how Trevor Nunn had the cast crawl around during rehearsals improvising catlike movements. "We also talked about cartoon cats like Sylvester and Tom and Jerry," says Mann, "the kind of movements that were caricatures of real cats."