Cats: The Jellicle Ball (4*)

I've always been a dog person, and not just because a cat slaughtered Cratchit, my albino guinea pig, leaving his bloody carcass under a tomato patch in our El Paso backyard.

That's a big reason why I had no interest in seeing Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, until last year when a new production opened downtown that re-imagined it in the context of the ballroom culture, something that Malcolm Mclaren (the same guy who discovered the Sex Pistols!) brought to my attention at the Muller cottage while Cats was still herding 'em in at the Winter Garden.  Now that could be a lot more interesting than my girl Taylor Swift appearing in the 2019's major motion picture debacle!

The show, now transplanted to Broadway from the Perelman Performing Arts Center, opens with a very tall DJ blowing off glitter from the original cast album, with those distinctive yellow eyes peering out from a black background, a color motif that has been smartly updated for the digital age.  But the other early signs weren't as encouraging.  I'd just begun listening to the score for the first time on my walk to the theater.  Not a single melody stuck, I couldn't make heads nor tails of the lyrics and now, watching the energetic company do their thangs while much of the audience snapped production-provided fans with glee, I felt like Clara in the famous Burger King commercial, demanding "where's the beef?," or in this case, narrative. In its absence, I wondered why Junior Labeija seemed to be holding mostly dark court from a box seat, and kept my gay gaze focused on Rum Tum Tugger (Sydney James Harcourt, as hunky as he is multi-talented, a slaying combo for sure). He prowled around the thrust stage, with more than a few thrusts of his own, occasionally interacting with a plethora of young daughters seated with the gay dads in the bleacher seats.  Had I been bamboozled by the hype?

Definitely not, thanks to an electrifying infusion of performer-driven nostalgia that eventually had me on my feet and almost in tears.  Even I could figure out that Old Deuteronomy would occupy the throne hanging from the rafters, once the early ballroom judges (including Rachel Dratch, on brief loan from her much more demanding duties in The Rocky Horror Show and tasked only with occasionally holding up a "MEOW" paddle) vacated the stage.  But as soon as the frail but fierce André De Shields entered, commanding the audience to rise en masse with a hand gesture, the house went nuts in recognition of the Broadway legend, whom I first saw in The Wiz shortly after I graduated from college, before AIDS, and more recently in Hadestown for which he won a Tony.  

There stood a proud Black man, finally getting the kind of respect usually accorded to a beloved monarch, after living with HIV since 1991, and losing two lovers to the plague. "Memory," the show's most famous song and first-act closer, paled in comparison despite the vocal chops of Grizabella ("Temptress" Chastity Moore who ties with Primo Thee Ballerina for having the most evocative cast name).

During intermission, I consulted artificial intelligence about how much longer the show had to go and what the hell was going on.  Gemini, my new best frenemy, indicated more than an hour remained--uh oh--and insisted the book was merely an excuse for the felines imagined by T.S. Eliot to strut their stuff.  The information proved liberating, especially after Gus (Junior Labeija) finally took center stage, Oliver Hardy to De Shields' Stan Laurel if there had been a comedic duos category to judge, looking slightly stunned, if oh-so-pleased, to be on the Great White Way.  

I began to groove on the resonance of the ballroom metaphor (often-homeless LGBT youth are a lot like stray cats left to fend for themselves) as the kitties now strutted their best stuff (choreographed by Omari Wiles & Arturo Lyons) in over-the-top costumes (by Qween Jean) and accessories (that Gucci purse!).  Magical Mister Mistoffeles, (Robert "Silk" Mason) executed superhuman splits in six-inch stilettos and an Eiffel Tower headdress, and Gus's grandchild (Bryson Battle) sweetly personified his unique inheritance as a future haus-builder here, as he did a year earlier in the even more delightful Saturday Church, for which Qween Jean also did the fabulous costumes with significantly less budget. Deuteronomy, forever not neutered, licked his paws before randily tweaking Rum Tum Tuggers' nipples (and Broadway propriety), something perhaps only the leather man of a certain age in full regalia sitting a few rows in front of me also noticed.

There's undoubtedly no better place to cosplay on a Wednesday afternoon than a matinee of Cats: The Jellicle Ball, superbly re-conceived and directed by Zhailon Levingston & Bill Rauch.   The pair made it well worth overcoming 43 years of stubborn reluctance to see a phenomenon that turned Broadway, if not the first "megamusical" itself,  into a tourist destination, now and forever.

André De Shields, curtain call