Character
In Act I, the Jellicle Cats are in the process of deciding who among them will ascend to the Heaviside Layer (the Jellicles' conception of heaven). [1] Grizabella enters the scene an outsider to the tribe, old and decrepit. She is no longer the glamorous cat of her youth. Having left the Jellicle cats behind long ago, she is now alone, left with only memories of happier days. She begs for re-acceptance, but Demeter and Bombalurina, repulsed, explain to the tribe who she once was ("Grizabella the Glamour Cat"), and urge them to shun her, which they do. [2] [3]
At the end of Act I, Grizabella is left to watch from afar as the other cats dance at the Jellicle Ball. When she attempts to dance, too, she finds that she is now too weak to do so, a fact that she laments in both a reprise of "Grizabella" and a prelude to "Memory."
In the show's climactic scene, Grizabella sings "Memory" in full to the gathering of the Jellicle cats, pleading for understanding and acceptance. She collapses, near death, in midst of it but presses on until the end, encouraged by the kitten Jemima. Victoria then offers her a gesture of acceptance, and then the other Jellicles follow suit. They escort Grizabella before their leader, Old Deuteronomy, who in turn escorts her as she ascends as their chosen one to the Heaviside Layer.
The role of Grizabella requires a wide vocal range and the ability to belt to E♭5. [4] [5]
Origins and songs
T. S. Eliot omitted Grizabella when he published Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats , [6] the musical's source; he thought that her story was "too sad for children." [7]
The opening lyrics of the musical's number "Grizabella: The Glamour Cat" are from Eliot's "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" (with the substitution of "cat" for "woman"): [8]
Remark the woman
Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin.
— Excerpt from "Rhapsody on a Windy Night", T. S. Eliot [9]
The song lyric concludes with an unpublished fragment--all that remained of the omitted poem--given to Lloyd Webber by Eliot's widow and literary executor, Valerie Eliot: [10] [6]
Grizabella had "haunted many a low resort," and made the postman sigh "as he scratched his head / You really would have thought she ought to be dead / And who would ever suppose that that / Was Grizabella the Glamour Cat?" [11]
LLoyd Webber combined this composite figure with his own interpretation of a letter Eliot had written to his publisher referring to the Jellicle Cats as ballooning "Up, up, up to the Russell Hotel / Up, up, to the Heaviside Layer" (of the ionosphere, originally). [12] This pair of concepts transformed Lloyd Webber's musical setting of Eliot's verses for children into a landmark of musical theatre, introducing to a central death-and-rebirth theme not present in any of the Eliot source material. [2] [7]
Grizabella's song "Memory," is the centerpiece of the show, and is considered to be one of the most successful Broadway musical songs. [13] Trevor Nunn is said to have loosely based its lyrics on Eliot's "Rhapsody," too, completing them only during the show's opening previews in London. [7]
The song has been recorded hundreds of times by artists including Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Hudson, Nicole Scherzinger, Leonora Lewis and Johnny Mathis. [14]
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