Theater review by Adam Feldman
A revival of Cats, at least in theory, might well give you paws. After a then-record 18-year run on Broadway—with a tagline, “NOW AND FOREVER,” that began to sound a bit like a threat—Andrew Lloyd Webber's synthtastic 1980s musical finally hung up its leotards and yak-hair wigs in 2000. Its comeback efforts since then have been less than overwhelming: a taxidermic 2016 revival, a widely mocked 2019 film. It seemed as though the show had been condemned to obsolescence, humbled and disavowed like its own once-grand Grizabella the Glamour Cat. But now along comes a thrilling reconception at the Perelman Performing Arts Center that not only rescues Cats from the oversize junkyard but lifts it, like Grizabella herself, to unexpected heights.
Cats: The Jellicle Ball | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
Is Cats good or bad? That’s a question without an answer. Cats is beyond good and bad. Cats is Cats. Cats is about cats competing to be sent into the ionosphere. Cats is about cats who sing light verse from T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, an exercise in high silliness that sits at the classy end of an anthropomorphic-cat comedy genre that includes, at lower stations, New Yorker cartoons and I Can Has Cheezburger? memes. Cats is about Andrew Lloyd Webber writing a lot more melodies than he often does—to fit the requirements of Eliot’s meter—and producing many bangers right out of his hat. Cats is about human dancers performing feline, weirdly sexy moves. At its best, it’s ridiculous and it’s kind of magical. At its worst, it’s just ridiculous.
The co-directors of Cats: The Jellicle Ball, Zhailon Levingston and PAC’s Bill Rauch, embrace the musical’s inherent strangeness by absorbing it into queerness. What could have been kitsch becomes celebratory camp: The show’s secret ball for cats is now a ballroom runway competition of the kind recently visited by TV’s Pose and Legendary, presided over by éminence lavande Old Deuteronomy (a regal André De Shields, maned and decked out in purple splendor) and emceed by Munkustrap (Dudney Joseph Jr.). This concept—let’s call it Paris Is Purring—is ideal for the musical’s essentially revue-like structure, and its open embrace of artifice allows the production to sidestep the trap of trying to look like, or move in ways that suggest, actual cats. Instead of feline imitation, it is serving pussy realness, honey—always with an underlying understanding, as at the balls themselves, that realness is itself a kind of performance.
Cats: The Jellicle Ball | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
The cats who figure most prominently are contestants for the night’s biggest trophy. They include the ripped and strutting Rum Tum Tugger (a prepossessing Sydney James Harcourt); the Magical Mr. Mistoffelees (the elegant Robert "Silk" Mason, in hair worthy of Solid Gold’s Darcel Wynne); the nostalgic old theater cat Gus (ballroom legend Junior LaBeija) and his doting caretaker, Jellylorum (Shereen Pimentel, in lovely voice); the attitudinal Latina MTA worker Skimbleshanks (a very funny Emma Sofia); the kittenish stripper-blonde Victoria (Baby); the troublemakers Mungojerrie (Jonathan Burke) and Rumpleteazer (Dava Huesca); and, of course, Grizabella (“Tempress” Chasity Moore), who begins the show as a downtrodden cleaning lady but gets to sing the unforgettable “Memory”—and sing it mighty well. Some of the Jellicles have new twists: Jennyanydots (Xavier Reyes) is now the drag mother of the House of Dots; the wicked Macavity (the magnetic Antwayn Hopper) is now the mastermind of mopping, feared for stealing other queens’ costumes and props but no longer the demonic threat of the original. (That function has been doled out to others in the production’s most pointed departure from the original.)
Cats: The Jellicle Ball | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
Cats: The Jellicle Ball delivers everything you want from Cats in a completely fresh way. The small orchestra, conducted by music director William Waldrop, sounds a good deal fuller than one might expect. Occasionally ornamented with modern beats, Lloyd Webber’s melodies come through clearly and alarmingly contagiously; the show’s opening number, “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats,” will stick in your head whether you want it to or not. (Hint: You won’t!) Arturo Lyons and Omari Wiles’s vogue-heavy choreography is a consistent delight, and the excellent ensemble cast—whose performers fall on wide spectrums of gender identity and presentation—radiates joy. Rachel Hauck’s mostly peninsular set, lit by Adam Honoré, includes amusing immersive elements for those seated on the cabaret tables and banquettes near the central runway. Qween Jean’s costumes and Nikiya Mathis’s wigs are as extravagantly creative as the concept demands; Kai Harada’s sound is the cat’s meow.
Cats: The Jellicle Ball | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
What’s most impressive about this production, however, is how well the concept complements the musical. Levingston and Rauch’s vision fits Cats like a long sequined glove. No chance is missed to tease out potential queer meanings—when the cats sing “Jellicle cats come out tonight,” some of them carry signs that say “COME OUT”—and at times, the matches are almost eerily perfect: in the show’s sense of a hidden community, for example, or in its emphasis on respecting the names the cats have chosen for themselves. In many ways, this version of Cats is arguably superior to the standard one. Thanks to the ballroom-competition set-up, the show’s wispy storytelling is clearer than it has ever been, as are individual strands of the story—such as the role of Munkustrap in the proceedings, or the arc of Grizabella’s biggest fan, Sillabub (the sweet-voiced Teddy Wilson Jr., in a sunflower crown). And the audience responds ecstatically: On the night I attended, the show got two midshow standing ovations. It would be a shame if the runway ended with this production’s limited run at PAC. Broadway’s Circle in the Square Theatre will be free after Romeo + Juliet wraps up next January. Who knows? It might be just the place for an extended catwalk.
Cats: The Jellicle Ball. Perelman Performing Arts Center (Off Broadway). Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Book by T.S. Eliot. Directed by Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch. With André De Shields, “Tempress” Chasity Moore, Junior LaBeija, Sydney James Harcourt, Antwayn Hopper, Dudney Joseph Jr., Robert "Silk" Mason, Shereen Pimentel, Emma Sofia, Baby, Xavier Reyes, Teddy Wilson Jr. Running time: 2hrs 35mins. One intermission.
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Cats: The Jellicle Ball | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
