The Heaviside Layer is a setting referenced throughout the musical, usually interpreted to be a heaven-like place of rebirth for cats selected by Old Deuteronomy. Being selected to go to the Heaviside Layer is a huge honour, with hopefuls apparently vying for a spot each year.
Why do the Cats want to go to the Heaviside Layer?
– The Invitation –
They are waiting for their leader, the wise Old Deuteronomy, who will choose which of the Jellicle Cats will journey tonight to the Heaviside layer to be reborn into a new life.
It's where the chosen Jellicle cat is sent before they can become the cat they have always wanted to be reborn into. There are various ways the journey to the Heaviside Layer can be interpreted. Most see it as a sort of Christian afterlife, since the show itself is pretty full of similar imagery and rhetoric.
"Jellicle cats" is reportedly a contraction of "dear little cats," and "pollicle dogs" means "poor little dogs." As reported by the outlet, Jellicle cats were first described in another Eliot poem, "The Song of the Jellicles," as commonly noctural, black-and-white cats.
Grizabella is a lonely old cat who has been shunned by the other Jellicle Cats, possibly because she is implied to be a sex worker, which is bad praxis on the part of the Jellicles. Grizabella is probably the most coveted and well-known role in the play, and is usually played by a celebrity or respected Broadway dame.
The film retained all the worst elements of the material, from its outmoded nature to its unwieldy narrative, but lacked the humor and creativity to do anything interesting with it. This is particularly evident in the orchestrations for the songs, which sounds incredibly tinny and dated.
Memory is the most famous song from Cats. It is sung by Grizabella and the song is a reminsant of her glorious past and she declares she wants to start a new life. Elaine Paige originated the role of Grizabella and it was released as a single by her, reaching number 6 in charts.
At its core, CATS is a musical about accepting one another despite our differences in appearance. The musical tells this story through expositional singing and intricate movement, with sections like "The Jellicle Ball" moving much of the story forward through movement alone.
Grizabella the Glamour Cat is a main character in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats. Lonely and decrepit, Grizabella seeks acceptance from the other Jellicle cats but is initially ostracised. She sings the most famous song from the musical, "Memory".
That the cats in the Junkyard are in something like Purgatory, and the Heaviside layer is real life. It is theorized that the cats who songs are about, are cats who are putting themselves forward and saying why they should go to the Heaviside layer.
The Heaviside layer, sometimes called the Kennelly–Heaviside layer, named after Arthur E. Kennelly and Oliver Heaviside, is a layer of ionised gas occurring roughly between 90km and 150 km (56 and 93 mi) above the ground — one of several layers in the Earth's ionosphere.
Victoria – a.k.a. the White Cat – A naive and shy white kitten who is known for her beauty and poise. She is a featured dancer, opening with a dance solo after "The Naming of the Cats" and is the first character to touch Grizabella. . This role is a dancing cat.
Cats the musical was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and first performed on London's West End in 1981. Lloyd Webber based the wide cast of characters on one of his childhood favorites, poet T.S. Eliot's 1939 book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.
It is based on the 1939 poetry collection Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. The musical tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make the "Jellicle choice" by deciding which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life.
Grizabella the Glamour Cat (Jennifer Hudson) is the Jellicle Choice. I absolutely should have mentioned Grizabella earlier. Her song "Memory" is almost assuredly the only thing you've ever heard from Cats.
The Jellicle Cats come out to play on one special night of the year – the night of the Jellicle Ball. One by one they tell their stories for the amusement of Old Deuteronomy, their wise and benevolent leader, who must choose one of the Cats to ascend to The Heaviside Layer and be reborn into a whole new Jellicle life.
Grizabella left the tribe with Macavity in hopes of being a star, but as soon as she got injured, Macavity left her. He then replaced her with Bombalurina.
In his New York Times review of “Cats,” Frank Rich wrote that despite its flaws, the “reason people will hunger to see 'Cats' ” is that “it's a musical that transports the audience into a complete fantasy world that could only exist in the theater.”
No wonder the women who originated the part—Elaine Paige in London and Betty Buckley on Broadway—went on to become among the greatest artists the musical theatre has produced.
CATS is based on a series of children's poems, written by T.S. Eliot. Eliot wrote “Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats” for his godchildren, after his radical conversion to Christianity. Thus, CATS is like a Christian morality tale.
There are over 70 breeds of cat, but only one Broadway musical dedicated entirely to them. Cats, the fourth longest-running musical in Broadway history, will return to Broadway with its first U.S. revival since the original's record-breaking run ended in September 2000.
In 1939, T. S. Eliot published Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats through the publishing house Faber and Faber, where he served as an editor. The book of light verse was the basis of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats, which was first produced in London's West End in 1981 and opened on Broadway the following year.
Grizabella is at last forgiven and accepted by everyone. She is then chosen by Old Deuteronomy to be reborn, ascending up to the Heaviside Layer to "come back to a different Jellicle life".
"Memory" is a show tune composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Trevor Nunn based on poems by T. S. Eliot. It was written for the 1981 musical Cats, where it is sung primarily by the character Grizabella as a melancholic remembrance of her glamorous past and as a plea for acceptance.
“Memory” from the musical Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber was a semi-hit for Barbra Streisand, reaching number 18 on Billboard's singles charts. It was one of the new songs on Barbra's album of previously-released hits, Memories.
