Macavity

**Macavity**is a featured character and the main antagonist of *Cats*. He is a malevolent criminal mastermind with a blatant disregard for the law. His looming presence and attempts to disrupt the Jellicle Ball are major subplots in the musical.

## Personality

Macavity is a "monster of depravity", having supposedly "broken every human law" while always managing to elude the police.

His past relationship with Demeter has resulted in her paranoia about him. Gillian Lynne described their relationship through her choreography as "wonderful when he made love to me, but I hated him" and "your hands to feel your own body, as he once did." She also described both Demeter and Bombalurina as having "known him intimately."

Macavity possesses magic powers, including the ability to appear and disappear such that he is never found at the scene of the crime. In the musical, this teleporting effect is achieved through the use of decoys spaced throughout the theatre. He is also a skilled fighter and has some sort of hypnotic ability that allows him to put the Jellicles in a trance-like state (or in some productions even outright control their movements). Demeter also mentions that he has "powers of levitation", though this ability is never shown.

### Etymology

T S Eliot based Macavity on the villain from Arthur Conan Doyle's *Sherlock Holmes* series, Moriarty, both in personality and physical description. Like Moriarty, Macavity is also a master criminal who is known as the "Napoleon of crime".

## Role

We first hear about Macavity from Demeter, as every time she is startled she fears that he is nearby. After several false alarms, Macavity finally appears. He kidnaps Old Deuteronomy (who is later brought back by Mistoffelees), and then returns to kidnap Demeter as well, only to end up fighting Munkustrap, Alonzo and the other cats. Bombalurina and Demeter sing about him in "Macavity: The Mystery Cat".

Macavity is usually played by the same performer who plays Admetus or Plato, although in the Japanese production he is played by a nameless ensemble character.

## Appearance

Macavity is described as a ginger tabby. His costume is usually brilliant white, black and red, which combined with the stage lighting makes him a very threatening presence. He is usually dirty or unkempt, with wild, knotted hair created by the costume being covered in fibres rather than brush stroke painting and soft fluffies.

In the Japanese production, he has a cape and top hat, and is red, white and black. His black markings give him the appearance of having a tuxedo vest.

In 2014, John Napier amended his original design for the London Palladium revival, simply removing the white bib and flashes from the costume. This resulted in a much darker and less cohesive costume under the dramatic lighting used for the fight scene.

The 2016 Broadway Revival of Cats gave Macavity an entirely new design, primarily black and resembling the classic Rumpus Cat design (not used in this production) but with a gingery wig and tufts of fur scattered across his body. There were also rips throughout his costume that were painted red to look like bloody gashes. This design is also used in the Broadway Revival First National Tour.