Everyday Canvas

"Memories"

For: "Space Blog Group" 

Prompt: Memories are good to have whether they are good or bad. Let's write about memories.

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The word ‘memories’ brings back to my mind the song from Cats and the day we took our ten and thirteen-year-old children to see it on Broadway because it was the rage of the day. The play had already been a hit in England and had just started showing on Broadway . The year was, if I remember correctly, 1982. Now, all of that was a long time ago, wasn’t it?

The play was mesmerizing, and the actress who sang memories, her acting, voice, and singing, were out of this world. “Midnight. Not a sound from the pavement.”

On the stage comes the flashing lights, and the Jellicle cats emerge singing to celebrate themselves, some bragging, others playful. Old and wise Deuteronomy is their leader and Macavity is the villain who scares every cat. Grizabella is the outcast cat who wants to be a part of the clan and who sings memories for the first time. But she has left once and is not being let back in because she is old, poor, and scraggly now. The other cats treat her badly and none of them touch her. She disappears into the dark of the night.

Macavity comes in with the idea of kidnapping Deutoronomy, then causes an electrical short, letting the place go dark, and there’s a fight between the Jellicle cats and Macavity’s gang.

Toward the end of the show, Deutoronomy shows up with his magic as it is the time to make a choice of a cat for him among all cats, as that chosen cat can be reborn into a new Jellicle life. Grizabella appears and sings her song “memories” again about how things used to be for her. Now the cats accept her as she is the one to go to heaven and come back to be reborn.

The play, which meant to be a fun thing originally, meant more than that to the New York audiences. We treated it as if it were a spiritual manifesto, which later caused one of my kids to sign up for voice lessons. The other one took to guitar playing and eventually became a fan of Heavy Metal, although nowadays he has given that up and is into Spanish guitar and sometimes listens to elevator music with his wife.

My husband shook it off immediately, saying, “It is only a show,” but it made me attend and take in all the way into my heart every Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. That is what true art does to a person who may be highly liable to be impressed by sweet sounds...and cats, too.