Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Reframed as a ballroom competition, CATS: THE JELLICLE BALL is an unexpected bounty of joy, nostalgia, and humanity

• By drediman
• July 25, 2024
• No Comments

Last night at the Perelman Performing Arts Center, I finally caught up with Cats: The Jellicle Ball, a ridiculously enjoyable, emotionally potent new “revisal” of the (in)famous dance musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and, let’s not forget, T. S. Eliot. This version re-sets the piece at a high-stakes ballroom competition, a once underground scene that was a safe haven for queers — particularly the trans and drag communities — and people of color. So instead of cartoonish singing and dancing cats jovially vying for the chance to be chosen to ascend to cat heaven (!), the show now features human contestants brashly expressing their authentic selves while voguing their way to catwalk glory as if there lives depended upon it. Suffice to say, together with that other radical revival of another Andrew Lloyd Webber musical — that would be Jamie Lloyd’s severely stripped-down Sunset Boulevard due to arrive on Broadway this fall — this revitalized Cats is one of the most audacious musical revivals in recent memory. It’s also one of the most transcendent.

Despite the drastic reimagining, there’s an inescapable nostalgia factor that understandably accompanies experience. That the revival manages to exist harmoniously and unironically on multiple planes — even creating fertile dialogue between them — is a testament to the care and rigor that co-directors Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch have put into positioning their production, which equally honors the iconic underlying musical and the historical significance of ballroom culture. The new setting — and all the outrageousness and attitude that comes along with it — injects immediacy and authenticity into the proceedings, particularly with respect to the musical’s depiction of outcasts in pursuit of love, acceptance, and community in a world determined to repress and/or undermine them. Indeed, the production’s defiant, subversive energy uncovers an unexpected bounty of joy and humanity — something that I never thought I’d say about the 1983 Tony-winning musical, which over the years has been the butt of many a joke. But now on its “nth” life, the pendulum has swung back again. The musical finds itself basking in an unexpected renaissance — Cats: The Jellicle Ball is currently and deservedly one of the hottest tickets in town (I’m sure there are active talks of a Broadway transfer; the staging would fit quite snugly at Circle in the Square). Although not everything works quite at optimal level just yet, there’s a come-what-may rowdiness to it all that’s endearing and often times intoxicating.

Structurally and narratively, this is still very much, amazingly, the Cats you grew up with (at least I did). The most noticeable changes are the newly expanded catwalk competition sequences — complete with driving new club beat orchestrations — and some incisive shifts in characterizations and tonal delivery. Additionally, the ballroom-inspired choreography, courtesy of Arturo Lyons and Omari Wiles), freshens things up with new visceral kineticism and immersive excitement (well, Cats was always meant to be an immersive show). The great André De Shields is ideally cast, giving a silken, cooly commanding performance as Old Deuteronomy. In the role, the Tony-winner exudes the same kind of regal, hard love-cum-nurturing presence that RuPaul does in his blockbuster reality television series. Ballroom veteran “Tempress” Chastity Moore as Grizabella is a convincingly ruffled creation, and I don’t think l’ve heard a rawer “Memory” than hers. The rest of the feral and fabulous cast — too many to mention individually here — put their own boldly distinctive mark on their respective roles.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

CATS: THE JELLICLE BALL
Off-Broadway, Musical
Perelman Performing Arts Center
2 hours, 30 minutes (with one intermission)
Through August 11