"Cynical Cats, Rabbinical Cats..."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

All right, so I've got some questions about my CATS CD. I managed to get one in English, and it's the OBC recording.

Firstly, in Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser, in Japanese it's a duet between a woman and a man. And it's like that in the concert version, too. But on the CD it's two men singing, and I'm not absolutely certain, but reasonably so, that it's Mister Mistoffolees' actor singing the part of Rumpleteaser.

(By the way, Mistoffolees = SQUEE*giggle*eeee!^_^)

Secondly--nevermind, there isn't a secondly. Terrence Mann sings the Rum Tum Tugger. *melts slowly*

Also, Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat is so close to being the bestest song ever.

...Grizabella is Jefferson's CD Wife, isn't she? lillieoz, didn't you say that? She sounds just like her.

Oh! Second question: Can anyone tell me which material is TS Eliot's and which is Trevor Nunn's? I can't tell.

Comments

[bewareofitalics]

I just checked catsmusical.com, which has a question about the various versions of "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser" on the FAQ. It says this: "The characters were changed entirely. They were stipped of the song--Misto sang it and the characters did a pantomine dance. In fact, the characters didn't truely appear in the show--Coricopat and Etcetera appeared in clown costumes as the duo. This version was part of a play put on to "entertain" Bustopher Jones.

The Broadway version lasted in this manner until the fall of 1987 when the show was rehashed. They renamed the characters of Carbucketty and Etcetera to be Mungojerry and Rumpleteazer and they used the Viennese staging of the song. The reason given for this change was usually that they were updating the Broadway show to match the national tour and they wanted to make the role of Misto less strenous. One could also conjecture that they were also having a problem finding a ballet dancer who could sing well enough for the role of Misto."

So there's that. *g*

And I checked my tapes - it is in Hungarian that Skimble is "Elvisz Tren," pronounced "Elvis Treen." That's the recording that renamed Macavity "Sam Mitcegel." And "Jellicle" became "Karminica," pronounced (as far as I can tell) "Kamnita." I do so love the Hungarian recording...

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Er... wow. O_O This show got changed around almost as much as--damn, I can't think of any other shows that were changed as much.

Sam Mitcegel. I like that. *g*

[bewareofitalics]

Yeah, most shows get their changes done before they have major productions. *g* The original London production was really different from how the show ended up - different "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser" tune (which was also used in Hungary), Misto singing most of Munkustrap's songs, "The Ballad of Billy McCaw" instead of the opera thing in "Growltiger's Last Stand," etc. And veeeery different costumes - most people didn't even have wigs, they just made cat ears with their hair. And then there were all of the productions in other countries... I think it was Sweden that made the setting an attic instead of a junkyard.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

OI.

Although the attic sounds cool.