a successful run off-Broadway in the summer of 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\nWhat was once a spooky and balletic spectacle of 1980s excess, best known for the hit song \u201cMemory\u201d and purring chorines crawling on the seats, is now a glitter bomb of euphoric pandemonium. I was\u00a0delighted, and happily proven wrong, to find it\u2019s even better and more form-fitting uptown. You\u2019ll have the time of your nine lives.<\/p>\n
Good luck naming a musical revival that has ever departed so radically from the original. In concept, \u201cJellicle Ball\u201d is about as risky as they come.<\/p>\n
Why? Well, instead of cats, the characters are humans.<\/p>\n
Sounds ridiculous, I know. But what is Lloyd Webber\u2019s love-it-or-hate-it \u201cCats\u201d if not completely ridiculous?<\/p>\n
The fresh idea from co-directors Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch works. It just works. The inventive pair have done a\u00a0brilliant\u00a0job with their de-meowing. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Emma Sofia is fabulous as an MTA-conductor Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat. Matthew Murphy<\/p>\n
T.S.\u00a0Eliot\u2019s junkyard cats from London \u2014 Munkustrap\u00a0(Dudney Joseph Jr.), Old Deuteronomy\u00a0(Andr\u00e9 De Shields)\u00a0and the rest \u2014 have been reimagined as humans in New York. And the jellicle ball held to reach the Heaviside Layer has been morphed into a Harlem ball \u2014 a\u00a0sizzling\u00a0competition of fashion, attitude, dance and \u201cvogueing.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve ever watched \u201cRuPaul\u2019s Drag Race\u201d or the documentary \u201cParis Is Burning,\u201d you get the gist. Various \u201chouses\u201d convene under cover of night to express themselves and duke it out for trophies.<\/p>\n
You see? That is the same plot, such as it is, of \u201cCats.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
New York\u2019s ballroom culture has a rich history worth learning, but \u201cThe Jellicle Ball\u201d is here\u00a0not to edutain, but rather entertain. And how.<\/p>\n
Sydney James Harcourt is the cast standout as the Rum Tum Tugger. Matthew Murphy<\/p>\n
The bash,\u00a0in which choreographers Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons swap\u00a0pirouettes and grand jet\u00e9s for strip teases and death drops, is kicked off by DJ Griddlebone (Ken Ard, the original Macavity), who whips out a \u201cCats\u201d Broadway cast recording LP to cheers from the crowd.<\/p>\n
But the music isn\u2019t really piped in. There is a live orchestra hidden from view, and every note of the score is played and every lyric is sung. Some are campily remixed a bit, such as \u201cThe Ethel Merman Disco Album.\u201d What you\u2019re ultimately hearing, though,\u00a0is\u00a0100% \u201cCats.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andr\u00e9 De Shields\u2019 Old Deuteronomy oversees the action. Matthew Murphy<\/p>\n
De Shields\u2019\u00a0grand\u00a0Old Deuteronomy\u00a0enters like the pope in Vatican City to\u00a0oversee the action \u2014 a royal procession that must be seen to be believed \u2014\u00a0and rotating celebrity guests judge the head-to-heads in\u00a0various\u00a0cat-egories.<\/p>\n
For instance, Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat gets \u201cOld Way vs. New Way.\u201d So, the\u00a0vivacious\u00a0Emma Sofia is a saucy MTA conductor.<\/p>\n
For \u201cTag Team,\u201d twin kitties Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer\u00a0(the marvelous\u00a0Jonathan Burke and Dava Huesca), who are often portrayed as cockney burglars, use harsh and zany New Yawk accents.<\/p>\n
The jellicles compete in different cat-tegories to win trophies. Matthew Murphy<\/p>\n
The show\u2019s\u00a0dynamo\u00a0standout, Sydney James Harcourt as the Rum Tum Tugger,\u00a0is given\u00a0\u201cRealness.\u201d\u00a0Ripping\u00a0his shirt off at every opportunity, the actor with a\u00a0sumptuous\u00a0voice and rockstar\u2019s\u00a0command of the stage turns the frisky feline from a jokey Jagger into a\u00a0smoldering Usher.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, the singing and spirited movement, which happen all over the Broadhurst, have Broadway polish. Elsewhere, it\u2019s scrappier than at 3 a.m. at Pieces in Greenwich Village. That contrast, along with blending traditional musical theater with less-stuffy ballroom, gives the show its beating heart and eclectic personality.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTempress\u201d\u00a0Chasity Moore belts out \u201cMemory\u201d as Grizabella. Matthew Murphy<\/p>\n
Two actors\u00a0lend particular\u00a0authenticity to the\u00a0updated\u00a0setting: Junior LaBeija as Gus the Theater Cat and \u201cTempress\u201d\u00a0Chasity Moore as poor, ostracized Grizabella.<\/p>\n
Sixty-eight-year-old LaBeija, just about the best Gus I have ever seen, appeared in \u201cParis Is Burning\u201d in 1990 and thus adds a natural authority and pathos to the aging, whiskered thespian.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LaBeija\u00a0is\u00a0profoundly moving\u00a0without trying to be\u00a0and gets big laughs by simply lifting an eyebrow.<\/p>\n
Junior LaBeija has easy pathos as Gus the Theater Cat. Matthew Murphy<\/p>\n
And Moore plays the \u201cMemory\u201d songstress who\u2019s been kicked out of the club but is deep down the most deserving of the\u00a0pack.<\/p>\n
Like LaBeija,\u00a0her\u00a0emotion\u00a0is earned and\u00a0radiates effortlessly.\u00a0The notes? Somewhat less so. While\u00a0Moore sounds a lot better than she did off-Broadway, it\u2019s\u00a0still not your typical Broadway \u201cMemory.\u201d But nothing about this \u201cCats\u201d is typical. That\u2019s what\u2019s special about it.<\/p>\n
Without fail, the best Broadway shows are the off-the-charts inventive ones that could not have possibly originated anywhere else but the five boroughs. This season, that\u2019s \u201cThe Jellicle Ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only in New York, kittens. Only in New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Theater review CATS: THE JELLICLE BALL 2 hours and 25 minutes, with one intermission at the Broadhurst Theatre,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[207,157,9,56,63,65,64,905,20469],"class_list":{"0":"post-189070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-broadway","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-ny","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-nyc-headlines","14":"tag-nyc-news","15":"tag-theater","16":"tag-theater-reviews"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}