Preview
Identifier
Revue Program_Page_29
Creation Date
4-23-2021
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Theatre and Performance Studies
Description
DRAMATURGY - “MEMORY”
“Memory” is a song from the musical Cats, created and composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber using the poems from one of his favorite childhood books: Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot. Originally, he wrote music to the poems to practice his composing, but eventually saw the potential the songs had as a musical. Together, with director Trevor Nunn and lyricist Richard Stilgoe, Webber managed to take Eliot’s poems to create a cohesive musical. There were two film adaptations of the musical, one in 1998 (stage recording) and the most recent adoption in 2019.
The plot follows a group of cats, the Jellicles, who are having a ball to determine which of them will be the one to go to the Heaviside Layer this year--their version of Heaven--to begin their new life. Each Heaviside Layer eligible cat is introduced and then they perform a song about their worthiness. Eventually, though, it is Grizabella--a former glamour cat who has since been ostracized by the other Jellicles for her old age and decrepit appearance--that is chosen to go to the Heaviside Layer after singing “Memory”. The song is a melancholic ballad which tells the story of Grizabella’s life, of her memories of youth and beauty and how happy life can be.
“Memory” is said to be one of the most well-known songs in musical theatre history, primarily due to a recording by actress and singer Elaine Paige which made the song popular in mainstream music. Interesting fact, the show was almost a failure; sponsors were near impossible to find because they believed the audience would hate such an abstract show. However, after its Broadway premiere, it became the fourth longest running musical on Broadway. It was one of the first successful megamusicals, large-scale musicals that utilize spectacle and increased technology, paving the way for other megamusicals such as Wicked and Hamilton.
Publisher
Arkansas State University
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Theatre Program
Keywords
musical, compliation, retrospective, medley
