#carbuckety

There are so many things about Cats that are basically impossible to explain with a straight face. Like, just identifying characters can be like:

That’s Mistoffelees. He has a song, so I don’t really need to explain him, but you should know that if someone mentions a character called Quaxo, they probably mean him. Maybe. There are Mistos that aren’t Quaxo and Quaxos that aren’t Misto, but most of the are both. 

That’s Asparagus. No, not Gus. Yeah, Gus is short for Asparagus, but this Asparagus probably isn’t that Asparagus. To avoid confusion, some people call him Peter.

The :D cat is probably called George. He might be named Admetus, but that might’ve just been an error on the old website. A lot of people think he’s a dog.

Carbuckety and Pouncival are the same, except when they’re not. Bill Bailey and Tumblebrutus are the same, except when they’re not. Jemima and Sillabub are the same, except when they’re not. Admetus and Plato are the same, except when they’re not or one of them is actually George. 

Pouncival is also George sometimes. George was Jonathan this one time, and I think he was Bill Bailey at least once. This character design is named Admetus, Bill Bailey, Jonathan, Pouncival, and/or George.

And almost none of these characters will ever be directly referred to by their names!

Also, these are the kittens. No, they’re not children, at least not usually, but they are baby. There is a difference between being a child and being baby. Misto is baby but he’s not even a kitten. Well, he’s adultish. Kittens are sort of adults too, but they’re like baby adults. Misto is a baby adult but not a kitten. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer are also not kittens, probably, but they’re kind of baby sometimes.

Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer are assumed to be twins, but no one really knows and they might actually be fucking.

The girl kittens are Jemima/Sillabub, Victoria, Electra, and Etcetera. No really, that’s her name.

Outside of naming characters, there’s always:

The Jellicles are Jellicles because that’s what they call themselves. Jellicle means Jellicle which means Jellicle.

Yes, everyone is really horny, and yes, it’s supposed to be that way. 

“Buried nine wives” is an old-fashioned way of saying “outlived”, because the song lyrics are poems written in the 30s. The word “gay” is used to mean “cheery” instead of “gay” at some point. Also, racism.

So, a bunch of people are onstage, pretending to be cats. But, those cats are pretending to be pirates, and those cat pirates are singing a ballad about a parrot in a bar for long enough for it to basically be it’s own number. Also, racism.

And, the answer to everything:

Okay so a few weeks ago I made two posts covering Broadway Revival Tumblebrutus's personality and how the change in choreography led to Tumblebrutus having a very weird track and inconsistent characterization. Well, recently I went to see the US Tour 6 (December 5th, 2:00 pm show) and wanted to add onto my other posts with some of the changes Tumblebrutus got in this version.

So the first part is the development of US Tour 6, a few important changes were made from the Broadway revival. Elements of the stage and props, like the car hood being able to open were removed, characters like Mistoffelees or Grizabella don't make there entrance or exit from the top of the stage, the prop broom and balls aren't used in Jennyanydots, etc. The choreography is slightly modified to adjust for this, par for the course in tour versions if the show. The show also made the decision to remove the characters of Carbuckety and Electra. Makes sense, these two characters aren't really used in American productions. Electra has only ever been used in the Broadway revival, and nothing else in America. A common misconception is that Pouncival/Carbuckety are like Tumblebrutus/Bill Bailey or Sillabub/Jemima, where it's the same character, but different name (I guess technically Tumblebrutus and Plato are different characters with different characterization than Bill Bailey and Admetus, but the point is they aren't used un the same show.) Instead, what we currently know as Pouncival is a composite character of the original Pouncival and Carbuckety. @sevenkittensinatrenchcoat has a great post covering this and I'll link it here, highly recommend you read it.

But the main points you need to know are that Pouncival and Etcetera were replacement characters for Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer in the original Broadway version of the show, but when they were reintroduced, Etcetera was cut, and Carbucketty for some reason. Pouncival picked up his track, and later the costume that Carbucketty used, making the version of Pouncival used in most American shows.

So tangent about Pouncival and Carbucketty's history aside, with Carbuckety and Electra cut, the show makes some interesting decisions. I think Tumblebrutus and his track actually would have been the easiest guy track to cut, as while he does a good amount, he doesn't do anything that other cats like Pouncival or Mungojerrie can't pick up, and he doesn't really have much characterization like Carbuckety, so he wouldn't be missed that much. American productions like Pouncival and Tumblebrutus as the two male kittens, so maybe they instead should have just given Carbuckety's track to Tumblebrutus. With Carbuckety cut, they also decided to keep Pouncival in his new George-like costume. This also doesn't make much sense, as the Carbuckety outfit is used in almost all productions of the show, and is generally on the youngest male kitten, but no dice, Pouncival still looks like George.

Other tangent aside, with the two cut cats, there track gets picked up by other cats. Carbuckety's gets split by a lot of the cast, Tumblebrutus picks up the jumping jacks during the ball, being the cat Skimbleshanks spooks, and attempting to attack Macavity during the fight, but Pouncival, Alonzo, and a few others pick up various parts here and there. Electra doesn't have nearly as much to be picked up, Tumblebrutus takes her track during elements where the choreography calls for the kitten stack, Tantomile takes some (which leads to weird moments where Tantomile acts like a kitten and Coricopat is an adult), and Rumpleteazer does as well. So Tumblebrutus is more involved than in the Broadway revival.

So as usual, my notes, although note I missed part of Bustopher Jones, and since I was watching this live, I probably missed some things

- First off, Kieran MacDonald didn't seem as comfortable tumbling as the role usually has, so for a lot of parts where Tumblebrutus would tumble, and pretty much every time he'd do multiple flips in a row, MacDonald would instead do a turn, so we don't have a very tumbly version of Tumblebrutus in this show, the choreography doesn't change though. This makes sense as MacDonald was just covering for Sean McManus, who wasn't with the tour for a mental health break, but recently McManus returned, so tumbly Tumblebrutus is back!

- Also the Bill Bailey name is used for Rum Tum Tugger's chorus identity, this means literally nothing though for Tumblebrutus

- Most of Tumblebrutus's track from the Broadway revival is the same, when he's not part of the kitten stack, he's still doing the same things he was in the revival. The only change that took him out of the spotlight was in Gumbie Cat, since they didn't use the prop balls, Tumble doesn't do his flip onto a ball right at the end of the number, and instead stays in the ensemble.

- Pulled away by Skimbleshanks during Tugger's song, but he shows Skimble what he's learned from Tugger, much to Skimble's chagrin

- With Victoria during Grizabella the Glamour Cat, being protected by Jennyanydots

- I still don't know what his interaction with Alonzo is during the romantic part of the ball before the pas de deux. It seemed a lot friendlier than the version during the Broadway revival, and fills my theory that Tumblebrutus is just vibing with Alonzo rather than trying to flirt, but I still don't know what the point of this is

- Tumblebrutus was very close to Skimbleshanks and Jennyanydots during the pas de deux, he wasn't quite paired with them, but considering a previous bootleg had him curled up next to Old Deuteronomy, I thought it was worth noting. Also no Skimbletable

- Tumblebrutus and Pouncival do the second attack on Grizabella after the ball, unlike the revival where Tumblebrutus just pushes her, both of them ran up to her and rubbed there asses on her (I'm not kidding), they still get chided by Munkustrap

- Just vibing with Sillabub and Pouncival during Gus and Peke & Pollicles

- He's with these two during every moment the kitten stack is used together in choreography, except for once I noticed during Old Deuteronomy, where it was just Sillabub and Pouncival

- HE'S DOING CHOREOGRAPHY DURING SKIMBLESHANKS (I was very disappointed that he wasn't in it at all in the revival)

- He's the cat Skimble spooks, and he holds open the umbrella

- Him and Pouncival are Macavity's henchcats, they left before the final group moment in Skimble, left with fake Macavity (I think Alonzo was fake Macavity), and then they both rejoined during the fight

- He's the one who tries to attack Macavity

- Rumpleteazer picks up Electra's part during Mistoffelees, so her and Tumblebrutus interact like this twice

- Second cat to greet Grizabella with Pouncival. Unlike a different person's account of an earlier show, Tumblebrutus was not looking at Grizabella during the entire number, he looked up later just before she fall

- Last bow as usual

So, what do we got? First off, this Tumblebrutus is significantly more involved than the Broadway revival version of him since he's picking up a lot of Carbuckety and Electra's track. He's one of the three youngest cats in the tribe, but seems to be the oldest of the three. He doesn't have original Broadway's Tumblebrutus or Broadway revival's Carbuckety arc of trying to prove himself to the adults of the cats, but he does get the culmination where that cat joins in on the Macavity fight. He's more similar to London's Bill Bailey, but not quite as chaotic or mischievous. Tumblebrutus interacts with Pouncival and Sillabub the most of all the characters, especially Pouncival, those two are next to each other for a lot of the show. Other than the kitten stack, he interacts with Victoria, Rumpleteazer, Alonzo, Skimbleshanks, and Jennyanydots a lot. With Victoria, I honestly got the vibe they were either siblings or really good platonic friends, where as he seemed to maybe have a bit of a crush on Rumpleteazer. I already talked about his interaction with Alonzo and how I still don't know what it means, but they are friendlier to each other than other versions of the show. Skimbleshanks and Jennyanydots seemed to be his parents, which seems to be the way a few Jenny actors play the charactsr as, they interacted a lot, especially compared to Tumblebrutus and the other adults. He had a few interactions with Jellylorum, Old Deuteronomy, and Plato, but I didn't get any real opinion on there relationship. He seems to be a good kid who generally doesn't get into trouble, but still doesn't really know what he's doing. He almost seems like a younger version of the original Broadway Tumblebrutus.

My Pouncival/Carbuckety + Other Cats Pic Collection Part 1

Eighth Vienna mix: Stephen Martin Allan as Mistoffelees and Johnny Randall as Carbuckety. Links to the others in the series below the cut.