mistocopat
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The story behind GrizabellaWhat is your opinion on Grizabella's background?
How did she become such a sad, old cat?
I think that maybe she was so cocky that she thought she didn't need the Jellicles anymore. Then she realized what a dumb thing she had done, and tried to go back to them. But, they would no longer accept her. Her one little mistake cost her years of rejection.
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bombalur1na
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i sort-of agree.. mostly I think..
Well, I think she was curious... She wanted to go explore and whatnot, see what else there was. And I think since she was such an important cat.. being such a beauty, it was sort-of a slap in the face for the Jellicles. They might have assumed she thought she was "too good" but really they just didn't know.
..or something like that.
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mistocopat
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That makes sense too. 
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ConverseSneaker
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Well, for my currently being written stories, I have her do something really bad and she tries to hide it because no one would ever expect the glamour cat to do that. But when everyone finds out, she is banished for it.
My real theory though, is that she just got too cocky like bombalur1na said.
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Roller Boy
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Re: The story behind Grizabella | mistocopat wrote: | What is your opinion on Grizabella's background?
How did she become such a sad, old cat?
I think that maybe she was so cocky that she thought she didn't need the Jellicles anymore. Then she realized what a dumb thing she had done, and tried to go back to them. But, they would no longer accept her. Her one little mistake cost her years of rejection. |
I like to imagine she was a famous advertising cat...lIke Morris, whom became older, or was injured, and then abandoned to the street...or she was wealthy and snubbed her wild family...then was "kicked out to the curb"
because she was so snotty to her peers back in the day, they in turn snubbed her after, and then in the end...forgive her, and send her to be reborn.
that's what I thought anyway.
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blinke!
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Wellll, the director of our show was involved in the German version back in the day, and he says that the way they played it was that Grizabella was basically a cat hooker who had relations with old deuteronomy and munkustrap was the result.
yes, thats a very radical idea compared all of your answers, lol. Just what i've been told.
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mistocopat
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| blinke! wrote: | Wellll, the director of our show was involved in the German version back in the day, and he says that the way they played it was that Grizabella was basically a cat hooker who had relations with old deuteronomy and munkustrap was the result.
yes, thats a very radical idea compared all of your answers, lol. Just what i've been told. |
 whoa
I guess that would make sense though.
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Roller Boy
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but why would they hate her so much if she was Munkustraps mother?
seems like there is more to that story?
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Moongewl
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I've always seen her as one of those people who gathered a little local fame for her talents and left her family/friends behind, heading out to the cat equivalent of Hollywood to "make it big." Once she got there, she found that while she was good enough to be better than people in her home, she didn't have enough talent to be more than that, but she didn't want to admit defeat and go home. So she turned to the less desirable ways of making money. Now she's come back, older, jaded, run-down. She just wants someone to care about her again.
If she were Munkustrap's mother, and she abandoned him at a young age, it would explain why he's so determined to keep the others away from her, but I just don't see that in the production in my head.
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blinke!
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| Roller Boy wrote: |
but why would they hate her so much if she was Munkustraps mother?
seems like there is more to that story? |
I guess Munkustrap doesn't know. But that's why Old D isn't mean to Grizabella.
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bombalur1na
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Ooohh... I get it.
Grizabella refused to pay child support.
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Roller Boy
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| bombalur1na wrote: | Ooohh... I get it.
Grizabella refused to pay child support. |
<laughs so hard it hurts>
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mistocopat
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| bombalur1na wrote: | Ooohh... I get it.
Grizabella refused to pay child support. |
Well she does hang around in a junkyard. LOL 
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bombalur1na
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And just to get this all out in the open: I always thought Old D resembled Uncle Phil from fresh prince of bel air...
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mistocopat
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| bombalur1na wrote: | | And just to get this all out in the open: I always thought Old D resembled Uncle Phil from fresh prince of bel air... |
Just like grizabella and Courtney Love. LOL 
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bombalur1na
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| mistocopat wrote: | | bombalur1na wrote: | | And just to get this all out in the open: I always thought Old D resembled Uncle Phil from fresh prince of bel air... |
Just like grizabella and Courtney Love. LOL |
Yeah but Grizabella didn't do a lot of catnip infront of Munkustrap and she also didn't hire anyone to kill Old D.
sorry, I hate Courtney Love.. i'd prefer to think of Grizabella as one of them.. uh, "classier" skanks. Like... Nicole Richie? Hah!
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mistocopat
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| bombalur1na wrote: | | mistocopat wrote: | | bombalur1na wrote: | | And just to get this all out in the open: I always thought Old D resembled Uncle Phil from fresh prince of bel air... |
Just like grizabella and Courtney Love. LOL |
Yeah but Grizabella didn't do a lot of catnip infront of Munkustrap and she also didn't hire anyone to kill Old D.
sorry, I hate Courtney Love.. i'd prefer to think of Grizabella as one of them.. uh, "classier" skanks. Like... Nicole Richie? Hah! |
Hating Courtney Love makes you human.
Yes, that classy Nicole Richie. LOL!
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bombalur1na
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Okay so after listening to the Glamour Cat song Demeter sings I really thing that Grizabella was a prostitute. Listen to it over and I think it really makes sense..
She haunted many a low resort near the grimy road of Tottenham Court
She flitted about the no man's land
From "The Rising Sun" to "The Friend at Hand"
uhmmm....
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Rumblepurr
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The GrizzGrizabella began this way...
Valerie Eliot (TS Eliot's second wife) brought in the 8-line Grizabella poem, indicating that "...T. S. Eliot believed the development of the poem was similar to Villon’s “La Belle Heaulmiere”1 who fell on evil days..."
In his interview, Trevor Nunn indicated that "...for Eliot, Tottenham Court Road still meant a prostitute area. So the idea of a once-beautiful creature who now only appears at night in a hooker’s district is something that’s very, very evocative. [From this eight-line poem, “Grizabella” became] A key to an enterprise, because if there can be somebody who’d lost everything, somebody who requires forgiveness, perhaps, then there is the possibility of a narrative. There is the possibility of some idea of rejection and eventually mercy [and] forgiveness."
Andrew Lloyd Webber even said in an interview that "...I think when he (Eliot) was in Paris, he had a kind of fascination with fallen women and that’s Grizabella, of course.”
So, between TS Eliot (through his wife, Valerie), Trevor Nunn and ALW, the character of Grizabella was given her background, and CATS was given its plot thread...
Respectfully submitted,
Rumblepurr 
The Writer Cat.
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MrsJemimaMistoffelees
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I think she abandoned the tribe [lead by Old Dueteronomy] because she felt she was to good for the group and better then anyone else and wanted to "make it big"...but nothing went her way once she left, and for many years made it by up as a prostitute, but as she got older and became tired, lonely, and decrepit she decides she should never have left the tribe and try's to re-join them.
So, I basically agree with what Moongewl said 
Veel Liefs,
Jemima ^_^
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Jemima57
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Re: The Grizz | Rumblepurr wrote: | In his interview, Trevor Nunn indicated that "...for Eliot, Tottenham Court Road still meant a prostitute area. So the idea of a once-beautiful creature who now only appears at night in a hooker’s district is something that’s very, very evocative. [From this eight-line poem, “Grizabella” became] A key to an enterprise, because if there can be somebody who’d lost everything, somebody who requires forgiveness, perhaps, then there is the possibility of a narrative. There is the possibility of some idea of rejection and eventually mercy [and] forgiveness."
Andrew Lloyd Webber even said in an interview that "...I think when he (Eliot) was in Paris, he had a kind of fascination with fallen women and that’s Grizabella, of course.” |
Very interesting  It makes me think at the old Paris, in Montmartre. Beautiful woman, who posed as models for artists for example, but had to sell their body and once they get too old, no more beautiful compared to the yonuger generation, were rejected.
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Phee
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| blinke! wrote: | | Wellll, the director of our show was involved in the German version back in the day, and he says that the way they played it was that Grizabella was basically a cat hooker who had relations with old deuteronomy and munkustrap was the result. |
Well, Old Deuteronomy doesn't strike me as the kind to fool around with hookers, but I must admit that I did kinda get the impression that maybe Munkustrap was the child of Deut and Griz.
I originally just thought that Munks was Deut's son purely because they're both leaders, and it was kinda like Munks was in training to take over once Deut eventually shuffles off to the Heaviside Layer himself.
But then the attitude Munks has towards Griz did come across as being a tad personal IMO. I kinda made up my own little history that as soon as Munks was born, Griz decided she just wasn't cut out to be a mother, (maybe a feline form of postpartum depression) and ran off, (which would have been when her hooking days started), so all Munks knows about her is that she abandoned him when he was a day old and instead of ever coming back, went and became a skanky hooker instead, so he's not too keen on being all that welcoming when she wants to come back.
No one else has to agree with my version of the relationship though.  I guess that's one of the unique and interesting things about CATS, we can all make up our own versions of who they all are and how they're all related.
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VictoriaTWC
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From what I've heard and teased out:
Grizabella is Munkustrap's "mother" according to some cast members and director's notes.
Old D. and she had a "relationship" together years ago, or maybe grew up together. I've even heard tell that some cast members believe them to be brother and sister....related
Grizabella has had a hard time in life. Without having had life "experience," that you just cannot understand at 12 years old, or as a teenager when you think you are immortal and nothing bad can happen to you, when things are all rosy and the future looks bright, you cannot understand the role and how to play it. Or even understand her part.
Liz Callaway was rejected for the part at age 29 until she was age 36. She was thought to be "too young" for the role and would not be able to understand the pathos and rejection and slams of life that an "older woman" has had.
Death, divorce, ungrateful children, loose habits, addictions, low self-esteem, it all adds up to playing her character. Unless you are a woman, and have been rejected by your peers for some behavior that you didn't want to do, or that you never understood the WHY and HOW of, or just rejected because of YOURSELF, or through jealously, that confusion, is why Griz ended up as she is.
Grizabella is a fallen woman, hence, a Prostitute. Perhaps she had a mate long ago who "divorced" her, and left her for another. Her "son" Munkustrap is estranged from her, she may have once "loved" Old D. (Which is the story I prefer. I think that Old D. and she were just "friends," they never were lovers, he wanted her, and she rejected him. Don't ask, it's happened to me a few years ago...sigh... wants to cry). So there are a lot of loose ends that T.S. Eliot wanted to keep blank. After all it was just a fragment of a poem that was never published.
VTWC
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ultra_lilac
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I kind of get the idea from watching the DVD that Jellyorum was one of the cats who remembered Griz from the days before she left the tribe, just from her reaction to her, and the way she sings her lines during 'Grizabella'. She seems one of the cats who is more scornful towards her.
I kind of think maybe they were friends, (or even sisters) before Grizabella left the tribe, and Jellyorum is angry because she remembers that once Grizabella thought she was too good for life in the junkyard.
They way Jelly seems to 'forgive' her at the end seems more significant than when she is welcomed back by the other cats.
I also get the feeling that Bombalurina and Demeter might be Grizabella's daughters, but that's just me. (which is why it's them who sing 'Grizabella the Glamor cat')
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Drumdraper
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I've thought she left the Jellicle Tribe on bad terms, because she wanted to become a celebrity. Before she left she was well loved and sought after by many of the Toms, including Gus. I don't think Old D had any interest in her other than a friend and a lost "daughter." I think she hurt Demeter in some way, but Demeter forgave her and wants to show that or Demeter was the only one Grizabella was nice too before she left.
After leaving, Grizabella traveled the world and did not make it big. She fell on hard times, maybe became a prostitute, but wised up some years later. Along the way she left a string of kittens and broken-hearted toms.
I just can't see her as the the mother of any of the current tribe, especially Munkustrap.
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littlgriz1
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Re: The story behind Grizabella | mistocopat wrote: | What is your opinion on Grizabella's background?
How did she become such a sad, old cat?
I think that maybe she was so cocky that she thought she didn't need the Jellicles anymore. Then she realized what a dumb thing she had done, and tried to go back to them. But, they would no longer accept her. Her one little mistake cost her years of rejection. |
jers my thouts she one wase a buteful fun cat that loved life loved all the tribe she must have bin a sweet kitten
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ConverseSneaker
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| ultra_lilac wrote: | I also get the feeling that Bombalurina and Demeter might be Grizabella's daughters, but that's just me. (which is why it's them who sing 'Grizabella the Glamor cat')
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When you see some shots of the young Griz in the movie at the beginning she kinda looks like Bombalurina actually.
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Mistress
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I got the impression that that the Jellicles were angry because Grizabella "abandoned" them when really she just wanted to see life outside of the tribe. She fell on hard times and was forced to walk the streets and become a cat hooketr, or to humans, one of those strays that begs for food.
just my idea 
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