It was a boring evening and I should have been in bed, but was instead sitting on the couch, watching trailers for upcoming movies on YouTube. Freddie was curled up next to me in a pile of my clean laundry that I had yet to fold.
I clicked on a new trailer and Freddie perked up. “What?” he asked as the opening notes of the song Memory started.
“Oh,” I said. “It looks like they made a movie out of the play Cats.”
“Cats?!” Freddie exclaimed.
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“Yeah,” I said, watching the trailer and cringing at it. “It’s a musical. The longest running musical of all time, I believe.”
“And it’s about cats?”
“Uh-huh,” I said absentmindedly, shaking my head at what I was seeing on my screen.
I felt Freddie’s paw land on my arm like it does when he wants something I’m eating. I looked over at him, the trance caused by the abominations on my computer screen broken.
“Tell me about these cats,” he demanded.
“It’s a play,” I said again. “It’s not really cats. It’s people pretending to be cats and singing and dancing.”
“A play…?” he asked slowly. “I only know about stuffed mice and my tunnels — “
“Not that kind of play,” I said. “It’s a form of entertainment. Actors and sometimes singers and dancers act out a story or — “ I thought about CATS ”sometimes just a loosely affiliated group of poems. They do it on a stage in front of an audience.”
“You go there sometimes when you leave here?”
“Not too often. We try to go about once a year. It can be expensive.”
"Tell me about it,” he demanded again.
I thought for a second. “Well, there are different types, I suppose. There are plays, which are just actors speaking their parts.”
“And then there are musicals, where the story is played out in song.”
“Sometimes the stories are serious and sometimes they aren’t. It’s fun to go and watch live people put on a show.”
Freddie licked his paw thoughtfully. Finally, he said, “I want you to tell me about the cats, not about your hobbies.”
I laughed and rubbed his head. “Ok, smart guy. Cats is a musical that debuted long before you were born. It’s inspired by poems by TS Elliot.”
“Poems about cats?”
“Yep! He wrote them for his godchildren and they were eventually published as a book.”
His ears flattened a bit. “Do these poems tell our secrets?” he asked quietly.
I was a little taken aback. “I...don’t know. How many names do you have?” I asked.
“Three,” he chirped, then ducked his head. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“What? — “
“What were you watching?” he asked quickly.
I stared at him for a beat, and then decided not to push him. “Um, they made a movie of the musical. I was watching the trailer.”
“Why is it a movie? I thought you said it was live on stage?”
“A lot of musicals have been made into movies lately,” I explained. “Some are pretty good. Some — ” I looked at the trailer playing on my screen, “— aren’t. It’s just another genre like action”
“or horror”
“Or science fiction”
"They should all have cats in them,” he said, sagely.
“I would probably watch more movies if they did,” I agreed.
We both turned back to the computer screen to watch the end of the trailer.
“They don’t look like cats,” he said.
“Hmmm, they kind of do. They have ears and fur and tails like cats.”
“They look like naked people,” he said and I laughed.
“There’s probably a market for that,” I said.
"Cats will probably be on tv eventually,” I said. “Do you want to watch it with me?”
“No,” he said. “I lived it, I don’t need to see it reenacted. I’ll watch something else with you, though.”
“Thank you,” I said, giving his fur a stroke. He purred a little and laid his head back on my clean shirts.
“I’m just going to take a nap first,” he said with a yawn.
“You do that, Rum Tum Tugger,” I said, softly.
“That’s not one of my names,” he said, eyes shut.
“What?” I said sharply.
He answered with a snore.
Happy Caturday, Peeps! Did you see the trailer? What did you think of it? I’m honestly skeptical that Cats will translate well onto the screen and watching that trailer didn’t change my mind, but I’ve been wrong before.