‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’ Broadway Review: Andrew Lloyd Webber Scores

Broadway is burning — and that’s one thing to rejoice.

“Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” a refreshed version of the downtown 2024 hit, blazes anew, having made the trek uptown with its extravagance, delight and sense of pleasure intact.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s now-and-forever musical adaptation of T.S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” has been transposed to the world of Harlem’s Black and Latino queer ballroom tradition — the same scene as the 1990 documentary “Paris Is Burning” and tv’s “Pose.” But right here, “Jellicle Ball” has a different human breed of cool cats across the binary spectrum. They are a part of the underground community of drag homes whose members compete for trophies in runway classes such as realness, trend and opulence.

What resonates in this manufacturing will not be just a vibrant twist on a legendary musical however the energy of transformation. As the kitty-littered junkyard of the long-running 1982 unique is re-set right into a new world of marvel, so too reimagined are the music, choreography, design and characters. Even the viewers appears to be contemporary and fierce, with a various mixture of theatergoers regularly engaged in the strutting on stage as they flutter their outsized followers to sign their gleeful approval.

But there’s a subtext to the spectacle. The queer predecessors of the characters on stage lived by a devastating epidemic, amid racism, poverty, and violence and discrimination of their homosexual and trans community. But these defiant drag homes supplied security, acceptance and glamour which have been celebrated in these city areas. Outside, the world could also be raging however inside, it’s raving.

The present begins with DJ Jen Ard thumbing by a box of previous LPs and taking out the unique forged album of the musical with its traditional cat-eyes brand. Bringing it to his deejay deck in one in all the theater’s box seats, he locations the disc reverently on the turntable. The first iconic notes from the score — now performed live — sweep over the theater. Though the tune is acquainted, the sound is one thing else.

Over the years Lloyd Webber has embraced new generations of artists reinventing his works in dramatic and darkish methods, such as “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Sunset Boulevard” and “Evita.” However with “Cats,” the immersive reimagining is brilliant with its score rearranged to replicate the percussive and synthesized coronary heart of home music. (The dynamic orchestrations are by Lloyd Webber and David Wilson under the music supervision and path of William Waldrop.)

Because the present’s textual content is essentially restricted to Eliot’s 1939 quantity of light verse, it stays basically an extended revue overlaid with skinny narratives. This new queer concept might simply put on out its preliminary welcome — as its earlier concept did for many in 1984. But right here it’s rooted in a real — quite than feline — community and its humanness is important.

In Rachel Hauck’s magnificent design of an industrial area repurposed as a makeshift ballroom, a catwalk extends from middle stage into the orchestra (and shortened from its earlier run to accommodate Broadway balcony sight traces.) But the vibrancy and hearts of these characters whose new identities and senses of self are on the line is just as thrilling.

Co-directors Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch hold issues in a relentless state of fabulousness, presenting entertaining design diversions, making a little bit of drama from the exterior world, and introducing a few glittering particular effects, too. (A large swirling disco ball descends mid-show from the rafters above the viewers, bringing to thoughts the grand chandelier impact from another Lloyd-Webber present.)

Another enjoyable sideshow: At this performance, comedian Billy Eichner and comic, actress, and jazz singer Lea DeLaria have been the “guest judges.” But their roles have been playfully incidental with the concentrate on the zhuzhing more than judging — and the dazzling sights, strikes and performances. Choreographers Arturo Lyons and Omari Wiles have these confident contestants shine with struts, sashays, splits, dips, duckwalks, vogueing and death-drops, each making an attempt to outdo the other, urged on by a rapturous crowd.

In a present the place fashion turns into substance, Qween Jean’s costume designs supply one splendiferous trend after another, topped by beautiful hair and wig designs by Nikiya Mathis.

Unencumbered with cat make-up, the forged of very human characters — all wonderful — is in a relentless state of movement — and emotion, too.

Dudney Joseph Jr. as Munkustrap, presides assuredly as the present’s regal emcee. There’s also the charismatic and studly Sydney James Harcourt as Rum Tum Tugger; Emma Sofia as Skimbleshanks the railway cat is wittily introduced as an MTA conductor and is as electrifying as the third rail; Robert Silk Mason as Magical Mystical Mistoffelees and Baby Byrne as Victoria are each visions of breathtaking fashion, grace and limberness; Teddy Wilson is endearing as Grizabella’s fanboy Sillabub, who represents a generational connection, as the present honors a seamless drag lineage.

Following a touching second act slide present tribute to the founders of the drag homes of that earlier period, Junior LaBeija arrives as Gus, the elder theater cat nostalgically recalling his nice stage moments. Giving the scene even more poignancy is that the gender-nonconforming LaBeija, wearing full fur and lengthy bejeweled fingernails that might double as cat claws, is a ballroom icon who was featured in the documentary “Paris Is Burning.”

Another elder presence together with his personal renown theatrical historical past is the 80-year-old André De Shields as Old Deuteronomy, the night’s grand patriarch. De Shields is, as always, a commanding presence, proudly owning any room he’s in with dignified stillness and innate magnificence, and yet barely in a position to comprise his youthful spirit, which lastly emerges in full in “The Ad-Dressing of Cats.”

The epitome of ancestral drag and gender rebirth is transgender actress and ballroom mom “Tempress” Chasity Moore. Her Grizabella is introduced right here as a former ballroom winner who’s now a disheveled-but-still-proud road one that finds transcendental radiance with a soulful “Memories.” In this second the present abruptly connects to its past, current and future — and as soon as again rises to Heaviside heights.

Prospects are also promising down the line for one thing the street hasn’t seen in a very long time: “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” just may grow to be the next much-needed, must-see touring present from the House of Broadway.