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Cats: Some people mummify them so that they can function as their private secretaries to the gods; some people are afraid they’re going to suck all the breath out of their babies; some people are allergic to them.
However you feel about or breathe around cats, we can all agree that if Taylor Swift were given a steel box containing a cat, a small amount of radioactive substance, a glass vial of cat-killing hydrogen cyanide, a Geiger counter outfitted with a hammer that would smash that vial if and when it detected the decay of even one atom, and also an hour, at the end of that hour that cat would still be both living and dead inside that box, Taylor Swift not having opened it given the risk of finding inside a definitively dead cat, because Taylor Swift is a cat lover.
Who better to appear in the upcoming film adaptation of the musical “Cats” (in theaters December 2019)? That’s a question we have neither time nor space to answer here, as well as rude and beside the point at this late stage. A better question: Which oversize domestic cat will Taylor Swift embody on screen?
The composer Andrew Lloyd Webber presented two possibilities in September: “She’s going to play one or other of the ‘Macavity’ girls,” he told Vulture, though he was “not sure yet” if she would fill the role of Demeter or Bombalurina. (Demeter and Bombalurina are two cats who sing a song about another cat named Macavity.) “I mean, I haven’t met her …” he added.
(In December, a photo of Ms. Swift posing before two 19th-century oil paintings owned by Mr. Lloyd Webber circulated through fan channels.)
Now the hypothetical box in which Taylor Swift was portraying both a cat named Bombalurina and a cat named Demeter has been opened, revealing Taylor Swift, alive, thank God, as Bombalurina.
(While Ms. Swift confirmed the news on Instagram on Jan. 22, 2019, the information appears to have been added to the “Cats” film’s Wikipedia entry at 7:45 p.m. Central time on Nov. 25, 2018 by a user with an IP address located in Middle Tennessee — by coincidence, the region of the state where Ms. Swift’s business operations are based and where unverified sightings on Twitter place her on Nov. 25. Ms. Swift’s own entry, which is partially locked to prevent edits from unregistered users, did not reflect the casting decision until Dec. 13, after it was revealed in a Universal Pictures news release.)
Who is Bombalurina?
The “MEET THE CATS” section of the musical’s website lists her skill(s) as “Flirting.” Descriptions from casting calls collected on the musical’s Fandom page repeatedly describe Bombalurina as a “strong” singer and dancer, “sexy,” “fun,” and “tall,” which Ms. Swift absolutely is (she is 5’10”). Bombalurina is named, but not described, in the book of poems by T.S. Eliot on which the musical is based.
Would you like to read an essentially random list of personalities and names a man ascribed to imaginary cats nearly 100 years ago and are you Canadian? If yes to both, the text of “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” is part of the public domain in Canada.
The verses were originally composed to entertain Mr. Eliot’s godchildren. (Despite having no particular plot and containing many nonsensical lines, they still convey a marked distaste for Chinese people — “heathen” being among the kinder descriptors deployed. In one poem, a pirate cat is described as having vowed “his hatred” to “cats of foreign race.” He is eventually killed by a “horde” of cats referred to in the original text by a baldfaced Asian slur, replaced in the musical by “Siamese.”)
Mr. Eliot’s widow, Valerie, gave Mr. Lloyd Webber permission to adapt the work on the condition that the meandering poems serve as lyrics, rather than a mere jumping-off point for a conventionally plotted musical script. In 2012, The New York Post estimated that “Cats” had earned the Eliot estate “nearly $100 million.” (Worldwide, the musical has earned billions.)
Valerie Eliot married her husband in 1956, when he was 65 and she was 30. Previously, she was his secretary. She had, in fact, become a secretary so that she could be his secretary. Her obituary in The Guardian recounted a story that, as a schoolgirl, she “told her head teacher that she knew precisely what she wanted to become: secretary to T.S. Eliot.” Before becoming Mr. Eliot’s secretary, she did occasional secretarial work for Dylan Thomas who, according to a volume of Mr. Eliot’s letters Valerie edited, once, before visiting Mr. Eliot, asked her “What is it worth to you if I push his secretary down the stairs?” As the executor of her husband’s estate, Valerie claimed copyright on the private diaries of his first wife, Vivienne, who died in a private asylum, in 1947. Accounts differ on whether her husband or Vivienne’s brother had her committed.
The role of Rum Tum Tugger will be played by Jason Derulo.
