#formatting it as a script was genius and so enjoyable to read!!

[perfectthewayyouare]

supernatural fic rec

I know I'm about four years late to this, but after much grieving and healing* I fINALLY got around to reading the spn fic The Goldenrod Revisions by @remythologise (previously thylaa)

This rewrite fic is everything I could have wanted and more for these beloved characters final journey. This is the ending they deserved, it is the ending WE deserved!

*so turns out I wasn't healed... and this fic broke me again, but it healed me also

I cannot recommend it enough, especially for anyone who still feels betrayed by a show so close to their heart

@remythologise held the characters so dearly in this rewrite fic, I honestly could see any one of the chapters, if not all, being on our screens. Perhaps they did... somewhere... in an alternate universe... good for them <3

[goose-books]

(original image credit to @/theyshane on unsplash)

a month or so ago the wonderful and very sharp-fanged @yvesdot said i should make a post about the process of Working On A Podcast - what, exactly, does that entail? and so today i set down upon your table a long post about the process of this podcast, its unique struggles, and What Comes Next!

for those of you who are new here: a modern tragedy is my podcast-in-progress, a loose retelling of three of shakespeare’s plays (romeo&juliet, hamlet, and macbeth) set in a modern-day high school. or, alternatively, “so so much drama localized inside a few overlapping friend groups of gay* people”

post under the cut!

tag list (ask me to be added/removed): @piyawrites @harehearts @bisexualorlando @guulabjamuns

*well. gay people and indrajit “macbitch” chopra. never let it be said i don’t have cishet rep 😤

what i mean when i say “podcast”

sometimes when i say, “i’m writing a podcast,” people get the wrong idea - they think i’m going to sit down, maybe with some friends as guest stars, and talk into a microphone for an hour. what i really mean is that i’m writing a fiction podcast - something like an audio drama, if you will.

i’ve had this story concept for a long time (since i realized i was gay, actually. sometime around my coming out i was like “...sapphic romeo and juliet. oh i’m a genius”), but it never really worked as a novel. my inspiration for making it a podcast was the penumbra podcast! which i am not caught up on but which dragged me shirt-collar-first into the world of podcasts. [blowing a kiss to mars] for juno steel.

i will admit that i actually... haven’t listened to a ton of podcasts. mostly because my incredibly helpful attention-deficit brain said listening to things is impossible forever. but let me tell you that starting to write AMT in script format worked immediately. and in hindsight? it makes sense. i mean, i am retelling some of the most famous plays of all time... why not get a little theatrical with it?

the process so far

the podcast is drafted! all 16 episodes of it. all... 176k words of it... only took me a year and a half...

i have my main cast together! AMT has a lot of side characters, not all of whom are cast yet, but my main recurring squad is gathered and i love them all VERY dearly. (also, the population of people i know irl is 75% theater kid. so i think i will be able to figure out the side character thing.)

within the group of voice actors, i also have three assistant directors, a term i use loosely because mostly i just mean… those are my right hand men. the main folks i bounce ideas off of and the main folks i have helping me organize all of this. i’ve said multiple times that i’m just the keyboard monkey and would be hopelessly out of my depth without my beloved assdirectors. (shoutout to @asimpleram, the only one who uses tumblr, you are my best friend and i love you oh so much)

i also have two “bootydirectors” who gave themselves that name and that’s just the people who know the most about recording technology and acting. thanks kings

right now the scripts have been sent out to some sensitivity readers and i am currently editing! (both with regards to sensitivity reader feedback, and also just editing the plot and character arcs in general.) (if you want me to send you AMT and you’re willing to give me your thoughts i will straight-up send it to you honestly just know it’s LONG)

i actually did not consider that writing this might be uniquely hard before i started

fun max tip: if you look too far ahead down the road and realize the breadth of the project you’re taking on you’ll freak yourself out so just dive into things headfirst without checking both ways or considering your actions!!! [i am giving you a double thumbs up from behind my monitor]

i have never written anything like AMT before! it has been an experience! there have been some unique struggles!

working with other people is harder than i expected! which is not about my group, all of whom are lovely people. it is about me and my little OCD rat brain that hates letting go of control. even though... an inherent part of writing a script... is that at some point other people will be involved... wild, i know.

9 main characters! AMT has 9 main characters. this is somewhat excusable because the whole thing is episodic and more like a season of a tv show than a novel. but still. 9 main characters. why did i do that

i’ve never written episodically before, so i’ve had to figure out how to fit the plot into appropriately spaced intervals. there are three running plotlines (one for each play), and they’re all parallel and eventually convergent. so everything’s happening at once and it’s… hard to make episodes that aren’t just “max threw a bunch of scenes together because they were happening at the same time.” (i will admit i’ve defaulted to chronological order when spacing episodes, so the timeline doesn’t get confusing. but i hope each episode is cohesive on its own.)

balancing the tragedy and comedy in tragicomedy has been… interesting. i do to some degree feel like AMT’s gone darker than i initially imagined it; while it’s a high school retelling of these plays (and thus there’s no. there’s no murder. the only person who dies is isaac’s dad and that’s six years precanon), all three plays deal to differing degrees with suicide, among other things, and it felt… disingenuous not to write about that from a modern high schooler’s perspective.

i can guarantee a long-term happy ending for AMT! i cannot guarantee much about what’s in the middle. (there are sixteen episodes; one of my directors likened episode 7 to a five-act play’s third act, when things really start to… hit the fan. he’s right and i’m obsessed with thinking about it that way)

the massive amount of time i have been working on the thing: i started writing this podcast in january 2019. i finished writing it this past summer (2020). that’s two summers that have passed without my recording it (which is obviously easier to organize in the summer… or it was before covid but you get my point). this is… a little disheartening? i don’t know; oftentimes i underestimate how long writing projects will take me. what it comes down to is my urge to put out content vs. my urge to make it perfect…

…especially since i’m technically competing with one william f. shakespeare. (the f is for fucking.) i mean, dear old billy shakes DID write the plot out for me ahead of time, which i appreciate, but still…

AMT is absolutely consumable if you don’t know the first goddamn thing about shakespeare’s works. that said. i assume some of the people who will listen to it are shakespeare enthusiasts, casual or otherwise, and that’s a little terrifying! AMT is a shakespeare retelling, but i’ve made these characters very much my own, and i suppose i worry about how others will approach that, and whether they will disagree with my interpretations, or the way i’ve adapted the plots, and so on and so forth... i just have to live with this one, honestly. i think i could edit AMT for a thousand years and probably still find something to change about it, so i will simply have to get over myself.

that said, i don’t regret the amount of time i’ve spent on it! i think the time i’ve taken to draft and edit these episodes has been well worth the wait; i’m genuinely very happy with what i’ve created, and whether or not you agree with, say, my interpretation of a modern hamlet family dynamic, i hope it’ll still be enjoyable!

so what’s next?

as i said earlier, the scripts are currently in the hands of sensitivity readers, and i’m editing!

over the summer, the cast met on zoom frequently to read through and rehearse scenes. and i will not lie it was the most fucking fun i’ve had this entire wretched interminable year. i am constantly charmed and befuddled by the feeling of Listening To My Words Read Out Loud By A Human Voice and also i love my friends so very much

we have a tentative plan to gather the cast (socially distanced and responsibly, of course) over thanksgiving break to make some actual stabs at recording! i am too afraid to concretely promise AMT Episode 1: Fortune’s Fool by the end of 2020 but like… i’m not NOT promising it! send me your finest vibes. we’re close.

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 14 August 2017

It’s been a bit of a rough year, and through various personal, professional, and international roadblocks, I’ve neglected a lot of the writing in areas not directly associated to work. 

While time has certainly been a problem, it’s also kind of hard to write as a hobby or writing for analysis of critical entertainment when there are so many problems going on in the world right now. It’s hard to write about something like comics when Rome is burning around you, even if you’re the barbarian at the gate who is being denied entry. Sorry, that’s a bit of a mixed metaphor, but I don’t really want to go into further details at the moment.

Anyway, after this week, I need a sort of distraction and I’ve decided this is going to be it. With all of the hell that’s been going on, I want to contribute at least a little something constructive, a little something positive, before we’re all forced to go outside and melt.

My two favourite books of the week were Divinity #0 by Matt Kindt & Renato Guedes and Spy Seal #1 by Rich Tommaso. 

For a while now, I can safely say that the relaunched Valiant Comics has been my favourite publisher of a shared universe within the superhero genre. You can argue that they branch out more into pulp-themed territory, with tinges of other adventure, horror, and sci-fi genres, but at the core I still consider it to be a superhero universe. 

There’s something about the way that they approach their story construction, events, universe, and individual issue storytelling that reminds me of some of the more inventive pushes into the comics medium during the ‘80s, including works like Matt Wagner’s Grendel, Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg, the Daredevil and Batman work from Frank Miller & David Mazzucchelli, many of the ‘80s DC “new format” series, and the stuff published by companies like Comico and Eclipse.

Divinity #0 reminds me off all of that greatness that has been being published by Valiant since Robert Venditti & Cary Nord launched X-O Manowar #1 back in 2012.

More specifically, it recaps the last three Divinity series as well as checking in on the current situation for some of Valiant’s prime movers like Aric, Bloodshot, Ninjak and Toyo Harada as it propels the universe forward to the next step of Eternity. It’s a nice palette cleanser before we move on to the next big thing at Valiant.

It also helps greatly that the painted art through the issue by Renato Guedes is gorgeous.

And then there’s Rich Tommaso’s Spy Seal #1 which is just a fun, well-written, funny animal thriller.

Quick Bits: 

All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #8 gives us a taste of the art from the artist who will be taking over as regular ANGOG artist when the series joins the Marvel Legacy initiative, Marcus To. I think there’s some more Greg Smallwood and Rod Reis between now and then, but it’s nice to see To here. He does a great Rocket Raccoon and the level of emotion and concern conveyed in his portrayal of Groot towards his friend is incredible. Gerry Duggan’s script is no slouch either. 

| Published by Marvel

Astonishing X-Men #2 is indeed the jarring shift in artwork from last issue’s Jim Cheung to this issue’s Mike Deodato Jr., but I can’t deny that the art still works for the story. I’m not sure how well this experiment will work overall, but as single issue episodic comics, it’s not much of a detriment at the moment. It helps that Deodato is providing an evolution of his style similar to what he used on Thanos. It’s dark, moody, evocative, and uses an impressive mix of regular hatching for shading and Zipatone dots. His recent output is probably the best artwork of his career. 

The story from Charles Soule also deepens, with this rag-tag group of X-Men entering the Astral Plane to confront the Shadow King. Unbeknownst to them he’s using them as puppets to play a game with a familiar face. There’s an interesting meta-narrative presented by Soule on nostalgia and repeating familiar tropes and situations that feels like a commentary on not only current movie practices, but also the call to doing the safe, samey thing in comics. It takes Astonishing X-Men beyond just being a well-written X-comic. 

| Published by Marvel

Genius: Cartel #1 is a nice return to Destiny Ajaye from Marc Bernadin and Adam Freeman with newcomer on art, Rosi Kampe. This first issue sets up a different scenario and situation, putting Ajaye into what amounts to be what looks like a black ops training site for her new “owners”, The Madrasa Institute. It’s an interesting counterpoint to something like Think Tank and Bernadin & Freeman continue to write Ajaye as a compelling, complex character. I’m interested to see where it goes from here. 

| Published by Image Comics/Top Cow.

Gwenpool, The Unbelievable #19 does something wonderful that bucks a trend. Sure, it’s a good comic from Christopher Hastings and Gurihiru, but this issue transcends that. This issue gives a future villainous version of Gwen pants. I love that. It completely upends the notion that when female heroes “go bad”, they tend to wear less and less clothes.

| Published by Marvel

Kill the Minotaur #3. Just look at that art. Just look at it. Lukas Ketner is a beast.

| Published by Image Comics/Skybound

Mage: The Hero Denied #1 reminds me that I should go back and read the earlier volumes. Not because of any confusion, but because this first issue is just that good and I want to be reminded of some of the previous heights. Newcomers and old readers alike should find enjoyment here in Matt Wagner’s other epic.

| Published by Image Comics

The Mighty Thor #22 ratchets up the growing tensions, featuring a battle between the Thors (Jane & Volstagg) and Sindr. It feels like we’re finally coming to a head with several of the narrative threads since Jason Aaron started Thor: God of Thunder, but then a large portion of this volume of The Mighty Thor has felt that way. The artwork from Valerio Schiti is also stunning.

| Published by Marvel

Regression #4 is one of four of the books by Cullen Bunn this week and it’s easily the best of the bunch. Not to say that there isn’t fun to be had in the other three, but the artwork of Danny Luckert and Marie Enger elevates this to a different plane.

| Published by Image Comics

Revolutionaries #7 is still the glue that holds together IDW’s Hasbro-verse. It’s also a reminder that Ron Joseph should get more exposure. And that last page reveal is one of the best I’ve seen in comics for a very long time.

| Published by IDW

Sheena - Queen of the Jungle #0 continues Dynamite’s current trend of relaunching their licensed characters by embracing a legacy presentation at first and then giving it a new wrinkle. As such, we’ll have to really wait and see where Marguerite Bennett and Christina Trujillo are taking the story, but there’s still a lot to like here in the zero issue. Especially Moritat’s art.

| Published by Dynamite

Silver Surfer #13 is going to dropkick you in the heart. Dan Slott & The Allreds deliver up an emotional penultimate issue of the series.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Black Cloud #5, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #8, Curse Words #7, Descender #23, Luke Cage #4, Magnus #3, Motor Girl #8, Rockstars #6, ROM #12, Royals #6, Secret Weapons #3, Southern Bastards #17, Star Trek: The Next Generation - Mirror Broken #3, TMNT: Dimension X #3, Ultimates 2 #100, US Avengers #9, Winnebago Graveyard #3

Recommended Collections: Dead Inside, Night Owl Society & Namesake

d. emerson eddy realises that despite all his rage, he is still just a rat in a cage.

[doomedandstoned]

The Strange, Fantastic World Of Devil's Witches

~Interview by Mari Knox~

We will shock our readers when they read that behind the name Devil's Witches there is just one guy. So James, introduce us to your project, tell us who are you and where your music come from.

Thank you for having me. I'm not really big on talking about myself, not because I want to create some false of sense of mystique but because I want to create a very specific experience. When someone like Hendrix says, "Are you experienced?" he's talking about seeing things with an open mind. He talks about transcending the ego and getting lost in your trip, whatever form that may take. I feel like by focusing on the artist, you can destroy the immersion of the art, unless, of course, they become the art themselves, like David Bowie did during his Ziggy era. So my reluctance to talk about myself is more about this world I've created through the story of the album and the points in time I've referenced. I feel I'll get in the way of the immersion I want to create in the listener. I'd rather just slip into the background and let the music speak.

Your debut, 'Velvet Magic' (2017), is a concept album and your songs seem to find inspiration in the works of Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, and Russ Meyer, not to mention gorgeous and charming actresses like Tura Satana and Soledad Miranda. What more can you share about the fascinating story you're telling here?

The story of the album centres on a mysterious female who is fully in touch with her feminine magic. If anyone has read ‘The Satanic Witch’ by Anton LaVey, they will know what I'm talking about. I don't regard myself as a Satanist, but this aspect of the left hand path is of great interest, as is Crowley. This godlike female is affronted by the horrors of humanity, specifically the tragedy of Vietnam. Her goal is to use her magic to quite literally save the earth through sex. Sex, to me, represents life, not perversion or shame. She finds this male soldier who was part of some of the worst atrocities in Nam, including the My Lai massacre, and decides to redeem him to save everyone. The album follows his story as he comes back to the US and right up until the two of them connect in astral coitus. It's really quite a beautiful statement when you drop all baggage connected to attitudes towards sex. I enjoy playing with juxtaposition and you will find it all over the album and visuals. Polarity is a very powerful thing.

I am a very visual person. The music that resonates with me the most are ones that create pictures in my head or have videos or art that inspire me. I've lost count of the times the visual side of certain music has compromised my enjoyment of the songs. It works the other way too. I've had songs that may have been seen as mediocre, not necessarily bad, but I respond to them because of the pictures they create in my head. Obviously, the music is the main priority, but I see the visuals as quite high, maybe even bordering on equal. Interestingly, movie director Jess Franco, who is a big influence, was mostly concerned with pictures. He didn't even write full scripts sometimes and just shot with his instinct having other people overdub later on. Often times, he had no involvement in that process, as he was off capturing new images.

"Psyche, Fuzz, Doom, and 1960s Worship" -- these are the keywords you use to describe Devil's Witches. What are your biggest musical influences?

Hendrix is everything. He's the only musician I've ever heard who can hit a wrong note and it's still the greatest note you've ever heard. Second to that is Frank Zappa. His early output with the Mothers Of Invention in the '60s is my favourite. Zappa could take pop sounds and turn them into prog rock. He was a musical genius in the truest sense. Other influences are The Doors, Jefferson Aeroplane, and Grateful Dead. The heavy side of my music is inspired by Black Sabbath and Electric Wizard. What resonates with me most about heaviness is the physicality of actually feeling the music through the speakers, even at low volumes. The heaviest song on the album is none of the singles, and it's very dark.

It not easy to create such an impressive and variegated wall of sound like this all by yourself. Sometimes it feels like there are four people playing together. How do you fashion this sound? And, since this is a solo project, how did you record all of the parts?

Russ Meyer was one of the greatest auteurs the movie business every saw. He financed, scripted, shot, directed, and edited most of his pictures. Looking up to someone like that is very motivating when faced with great ideas and a lack of resources. This kind of inspiration is what helped me -- having great role models with cast iron work ethics. I recorded the album just like most bands would, but obviously I had to do certain tracks at a time. The key is to always try to stay in the place where music feels magical and not to get bogged down by the mechanics of it.

At the moment, I know that 'Velvet Magic' will have a tape release via the Chilean label Golden Dawn Recordings. How did you get in contact with them? Would you like to release the album in other formats, as well?

They actually contacted me, in all honesty. Due to my love of the cinematic, I had previously played with the idea of having my name before ‘Devil’s Witches’ like old movie posters for example ‘Russ Meyer’s 'Supervixens.’ I decided against this for the reasons expressed earlier, but I forgot I'd uploaded some art with my name on it in this fashion. It became easy for anyone who enjoyed the output to find me. So Golden Dawn contacted me and expressed interest in releasing the album on cassette and that was even before they heard all the songs. Vincente Zamorano of Golden Dawn is a great guy who has believed in this music from the moment he heard it. I just recently sent him the whole album and he was very happy with it. Regarding other formats, I've also signed with another label who wants to put the album on vinyl. This label is enjoying the album greatly, as well, which is very promising. Stay tuned for the reveal of that. I'd love CD, but no one has contacted me. Maybe that format is dead. Also, it will be available digitally.

You really care for the band's graphics, from the art posted on social media to the music videos. Do you personally take care of that aspect or is someone else helping you with this?

Everything is done by me apart, from the logo. That was designed and drawn by a very talented Spanish artist by the name of Raúl Fuentes. He draws exclusively in black and white and has the most macabre underground style. His usual output is death and thrash logos and zine covers, but I asked him to capture the '60s in his style. The logo is very typical of the era, even labels like RidingEasy records have adopted this look and it was this familiarity I wanted Raúl to bring into the design. Combining that element with his underground horror qualities, Raúl takes the logo from '60s pop culture symbol into a darker place. This comparing of worlds is central to what Devil's Witches is about. Check Raúl out at Mörtuus Art .

The overabundance of female in the imagery obviously ties directly in with the music exploring feminine magic. I grew up exclusively around woman. My grandmother practically raised me and the only kids in my area to play with were girls. Even now, I live with five women, although two of them are cats. My admiration and respect for every facet of femininity is the cornerstone of Devil's Witches. I have deep religious feelings towards the divinity of the feminine, but maybe those conversations are for future articles.

Trevor William Church, the frontman of Beastmaker, supported you a lot during the creation of 'Velvet Magic.' How was this collaboration born?

Just like everyone else, Beastmaker caught me by surprise. I saw them at a Blood Ceremony show and was sucked into their Mario Bava soaked world. Trevor seemed like the kind of guy I could get along with, but I'm a shy person so I never worked up the courage to chat with him. When I got home, I added him on Facebook and just through commenting on each other posts, we become familiar enough to regard each other as sort of long distance friends. When he heard "Voodoo Woman," he messaged and complimented me on the song, the riffs, melodies, but he said the mix was not where it needed to be. He gave me invaluable pointers and has been my go to guy these past months while for navigating the album mix and certain other music business details.

Any chance that we will get to see your project on stage or is this something you're not interested in making happen, at the moment?

I have thought a lot about what a Devil's Witches show would look like and it's not exactly a record label or promoter's dream. It doesn't involve a band simply playing the songs to tour an album. It would be a kind of performance art. It wouldn't even be like theatrical rock. Going back to my cinematic influences, you might begin to imagine what I'm getting at. I wouldn't even necessarily be present on the stage. The problem is that it needs to be very specific. One wrong move and it's a bit of a laughing stock. So I'm not sure you're going to see it touring the world anytime soon.

It's quite clear that you prefer bands from the '60s and '70s, so if you were to suggest a recently released album or a contemporary band, which one would you choose?

There's definitely one artist I would love to praise right here, but I’m going to keep that one for me. Let me just say she has managed to create her own universe in her music through imagery and performance. Her own life has become a work of art, too, and she's a million miles away from fuzzy doom. But those images I talked about earlier are very strong here and inspire me in very tangible ways. Maybe one day we'll get to collaborate.

Before we say goodbye to the Doomed & Stoned readers, I've got on last question to ask. What should we expect from you in the future?

I have already begun writing album two and the story follows directly on from Velvet Magic. I'm just as excited creating this as the first, so it may not be too long, but the future right now for everybody is Velvet Magic. Thank you for offering me a platform to connect with listeners and bring this experience to a wider audience.

Follow The Band.

Get The Music.

[celestial-depths]

What’s Great About Cats (The Musical)

Lately, I’ve been thinking about Cats. The movie adaptation of the famous Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical premiered last month to absolutely scathing reviews. The critical and the popular response to the film has been so abysmal that it has become a spectacle of its own. Everyone in the world seems to have gathered around to join in the gleeful axing of this one trainwreck of a film – which is kind of cute. At least there’s one thing we seem to agree on in these divisive times. This is not a review of Cats (2019), because I have not seen it. I don’t care to, at least not for now. I couldn’t even get through the trailers without cringing myself to death. Still, I do have some fascination with the film as a cultural event, and I have found myself watching and reading numerous reviews and think pieces on Cats, both the original stage production and the movie adaptation, which all seemed to revolve around two major questions: 1. How did a movie like this get made? and 2. Why was this show ever popular in the first place? The latter question on particular has been on my mind. I should know the answer, because I was completely obsessed with it for a funny couple of years of my early teens – and I’m not sure why anymore. I first saw the 1998 adaptation of the musical on TV when I was 13, and something about it instantly struck a chord in me. I started watching it over and over again, until I knew every character by name and every step of the choreography. I know which cat is called Munkustrap and which one is Tumblebrutus, I’ve seen the show live a couple of times, and yes, I can even tell you what a goddamn Jellicle cat is. But eventually my interest in the musical waned, and I moved on to obsess over something else. Probably Neil Gaiman. In some ways, it’s no mystery to me why I fell in love with the show so hard at that point of my life. Teenagers tend to get obsessed over things they’re fond of, especially if they’re lonely. The show made me happy, so I kept watching it on repeat in search of a lost sense of joy. I have a tendency of becoming intensely invested in all sorts of cultural properties due to some part of my personality or brain chemistry that absolutely refuses to enjoy the things I like within reasonable limits, so of course I couldn’t stop watching it. And the show was campy as fuck; that’s certainly a common feature in a lot of things I’ve stanned since and before. So, that’s a part of the answer: I have an embarrassing history of being an ardent fan of Cats because I came across it in a time when I was in need of something fun and campy to escape to. But was in the show that made me like it so much more than anything else I might have caught on TV? That’s a harder question to answer, because I frankly can’t see it anymore. In fact, my enjoyment of the musical left me pretty much as soon as I stopped being a fan of it; just a couple of years later, I found myself looking back and wondering what on earth I saw in the show in the first place, because I could no longer stand it.

Revisiting the musical today, I don’t even feel any nostalgia for it. I don’t like the songs. I don’t find the characters compelling. The show is childish, but it never fully commits to being children’s show, which gives it a weird vibe. The lack of plot is a common complaint, but that one doesn’t actually bother me all that much, since I’ve always viewed it as a kind of a revue – but it’s not like not having a plot does a show as thematically empty as Cats any favors. The dancing is pretty good, and I quite like the costumes and make-up designs of the stage production, but not enough to say that I like the show overall more than I dislike it. So, what was it? Did I simply have a poorer taste in music as a thirteen-year-old? Probably. Am I secretly a furry? Definitely not. Is there a deeper meaning to Cats that most people simple miss? I don’t know. I thought about this a lot in the wake of the crazy reaction to the first trailer of the movie. That’s also where I eventually found my answer. I try to keep up with news about upcoming movies, and I first heard that they’re turning Cats into a movie right when they first announced it. I immediately thought it sounded like a bad idea, and I assumed that the movie would never actually make it into production. Then the casting announcements starting dropping, each wilder than the one before. Dame Judi Dench! Rebel Wilson! SIR IAN? TAYLOR SWIFT? IDRIS ELBA AS MACAVITY THE MYSTERY CAT??? At some point there, I started wondering if there really was something genius about the visual presentation or the script of the movie that was drawing all these big names in, but nope – even the news about the making of the film kept me reassured that the movie was going to be... not good. I heard that Tom Hooper was directing, which did not bode well since he’s not exactly the type of visual or conceptual mastermind (unless you’re very, very into unnerving close-ups, fisheye lenses, and unmotivated mise en scène) that a source material like Cats would need in order to become remotely interesting on the big screen, and because Hooper’s previous take on a from-stage-to-screen movie was pretty uninspired, at least as far as musical movies go (Les Mis is a garbage movie FIGHT ME). And then came the news about the state of the art digital fur technology, and I could already predict that the movie was going to be not just bad, but a disaster. The first trailer and the unanimously awful reviews only confirmed what I already knew. I’m not going to pan the actual movie because, as I said, I haven’t seen it. It looks too creepy, and I am not interested in spending my money to see what I imagine is the worst possible version of something that I already dislike. But I did see enough trailer footage to realize what was it about Cats that made me like it in the first place because it was so obviously missing in the movie adaptation. Allow me to explain. In the stage version of Cats, the performers are dressed in painted leotards, shaggy wigs, and ragged leg-warmers, and their faces are covered in fanciful make-up designs. The choreography is a mix of ballet, jazz, and modern dance moves with feline movements and hisses thrown in. In other words, the costumes and the performances suggest felinity rather than attempt to represent it as closely as possible. None of the performers look or act like real-life cats – yet the magic of the theater allows the audience to accept them as cats for the duration of the show. Cats also makes very good use of its format. It’s tailored to be enjoyed live in the theater, where the audience can really appreciate the big, elaborate dance numbers and feel the scale of the set, which usually consists of big junkyard items. The performers regularly jump off the stage and come out to interact with the audience, and they tend to goof around in the background during someone else’s number, which adds to the unique and personal feel of each performance. In the movie, wigs and leotards are ditched for CGI, which turns the actors into horrifying human-cat hybrid monstrosities. While they arguably look more cat-like with their hideous moving ears and furry faces than the stage actors, they also don’t look enough like cats to justify the decision to take the look of the characters so far. The rules of the theater don’t apply to CGI; it either looks right, or it looks wrong. And Cats looks VERY wrong. From what I’ve heard, the movie has also chopped down its dance numbers into such little pieces through quick-paced editing that it’s hard to appreciate the dancing. There’s obviously no audience interaction either, no electrifying presence of a live performance. The movie has apparently taken the show and stripped away everything that might have made it somewhat enjoyable. Which brings me to my point. What’s great about Cats? It’s not the music or the costumes. It’s not the characters or the lyrics. It’s not Memory. It’s the fact that Cats channels the essence of theater. It may not be good theater, but it’s definitely theatrical to the highest degree. It’s a show that brings out and relies on elements that are unique to the medium: the presence of a set and talented live performers, the interaction between the actors and the audience, the magic of conjuring up an impression that the audience believes in through clever costuming and movements alone. Take those elements out, and you’re left with nothing but an awkward group of celebrities prancing around to dated showtunes with nonsense lyrics.   

There’s a reason why theater hasn’t become outdated as a form of art, even though it’s been competing with movies for over a century. The two mediums are not interchangeable; there are still plenty of things the theater can do that simply do not work on screen. I’m sure that this isn’t the only reason Cats the movie became such a colossal failure (I’ve heard that human-faced cockroaches who were later consumed by Rebel Wilson’s character were also involved), but I like to think that it’s a part of it.  

I was pretty new to theater when I first saw Cats. Looking back now, I can finally tell that the thing that I fell in love with wasn’t the actual show, but theater itself. Cats introduced me to stage musicals, and while my interest in that particular genre has diminished over time as well, I did develop a life-long affection for theater in general.