What I like about cats in picture books: you can put one on, say, a lightship, and have her walk on camera, eat her supper, look where you tell her to, sit expectantly, act startled, curl up, take a nap, all on cue.
But is there anyone bold enough to try to get a cat to do that live, on Broadway?
Read about such an attempt in a new staging of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” here. “For he is docile and can learn certain things,” says Christopher Smart in his remarkable paean to his cat Jeoffry, and, “For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.” Maybe yes, but still there are limits, and I hope that every illustrator who has ever blithely added a cat to a scene to give a page a little extra life will join me in wishing the Tiffany’s team good luck.
Illustration from Lightship.
3 comments:
With a hat tip to your friend Teresa, the not-so-crazy-cat lady (?) who cannot resist the urge to share via social media almost anything feline-related.
I love that you wrote about this.
Yes, I tip the hat! I tip the hat three times. It's a hat-trick hat tip. (I could barely even type that, much less say it.)
Kudos. Love it. No comment on Teresa's self-applied epithet.
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