Cats - The Jellicle Ball, Perelman Performing Arts Center, New York City (July 10)

Even lovers of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1981 musical Cats must concede that its first act especially is confusing which only underlines the problem with the through-sung musical - it's difficult to advance narrative through song. That's what all those recitatives and subtitles and program notes in opera are for. Those not enthralled by the spectacle or Webber's score have checked out in bewilderment by the third number. Cats has long since been Exhibit A for anyone disdainful of musical theatre - low-nutrition, flat-bottomed, readymade for tourists instead of the Serious Theatergoer. So when a friend invited me along to see Cats - The Jellicle Ball, a reimagining of the show told through the prism of the queer ballroom culture excavated by Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990), I wasn't expecting much, perhaps an episode of Pose bedizened with "Memory" and a few of the peppier numbers. What I couldn't have imagined is how utterly it would overwhelm me for all of its 2.5 hours. After over forty years, with direction by by Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch and choreography by Arturo Lyons and Omari Wiles, Cats is finally a Great Musical. 

The reimagining is both radical and not. This is basically a production of Cats. No noticeable numbers or characters are eliminated or added. So the confusion remains, solidifying the notion that Cats is at heart a non-narrative show. The story concerns a clutter of cats vying for the chance to gain a new life in a celestial body called the Heaviside Layer. But this overall arc gets lost in the show's contest structure which gives each cat the spotlight for a number or two in an attempt to dazzle us. The genius of The Jellicle Ball is in realizing how perfectly Cats and ballroom culture work together. Drag balls are contests, not stories. They roll out categories (recall those from Paris is Burning such as Schoolboy/girl Realness, Town and Country, or Butch Queen First Time in Drags at a Ball) and a panel of judges declares a winner within each. With that structure in place, one gleaned by anyone familiar with RuPaul's Drag Race or HBO's Legendary, the audience is freed of narrative expectation. The cast aren't even cats; they're mostly Black and Latinx, mostly queer ball contenders. They're there to serve sickening looks and moves down the catwalk to get tens across the board and snatch a trophy. We are at a ball, not a diegetic event eliciting docile voyeurism, and thus, the production encourages the audience to honor the titanic talent on display with fan thworps and spontaneous hollering for an altogether immersive experience. As a gay man comfortable with jettisoning narrative and bored with distended second acts, I've never had more fun or been more moved at the theatre. 

Part of how The Jellicle Ball keeps the excitement up throughout is that every moment is suffused with the energy of the house and disco music heard at balls. This is not only a matter of undergirding the songs with an electronic dance beat; the staging and choreography emulate the very structure of disco and house music. Both related genres often rely on the break for their effectiveness on the dancefloor. The break is that part of the track where most of the elements drop out leaving only the percussion or perhaps the vocals to proceed. When the rest of the music finally returns (labeled the drop in DJ parlance), the effect can be so kinetic that dancers will wave their hands in the air, screaming and blowing whistles and ripping off their shirts in orgasmic ecstasy. A classic example is Armand Van Helden ft. Roland Clark's 1999 "Flowerz" with the break starting around 5:38 and the megaton drop occurring at 7:39 in this video.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the opening ensemble number "Prologue: Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats." The song builds in intensity until the backbeat slows and soon stops, allowing the cats to sing as an angelic choir. And then the number slams right back into a fast-paced chorus as if it never left. It's a spritzy enough moment in the original. But The Jellicle Ball sets it on fire. The ensemble is gathered at the far end of the runway for the angelic chorus. And when the drop occurs, they march down the runway in Chorus Line-precision sync with choreography evoking the catwalk moves of ball culture. The effect is like watching a stream of fabulous queer bodies shoot out of a canon, surpassing even the drop in "Flowerz" in intensity. It so overwhelmed me that I could've ran to the nearest corner and crouched down to sob. I feel lucky to have witnessed it. Recognizing that this is their money shot, The Perelman Performing Arts Center has chosen a rehearsal of this very moment to advertise the show generating over a million views on Instagram and kicking off a viral dance challenge. 

Anyone still requiring a three-act structure with psychologically well-rounded characters will recoil from The Jellicle Ball. Indeed, one might even claim that the non-narrative framework robs the Black and Latinx queer characters of their chance to tell their stories. But Cats is skeletal enough that The Jellicle Ball never falls into the trap of plastic representation - inserting BIPOC representation into a structure with no BIPOC import. Because the spatiotemporal nature of Cats is so fantastical and non-specific, the Jellicle Cats can occupy it without paying fealty to a diegesis unrelated to their lives. Their stories, their critical thought, their dismantling of the master's tools occur through their bodies which can travserse and abandon space as ball participants have done with gymnasiums, rec centers, dance halls, etc. André De Shields as Old Deuteronomy says precious few words. His age-etched visage brings the past to bear on the proceedings and commands respect with nary a muscle twitch. Junior LaBeija (the queen who spells out "opulence" in Paris is Burning) as Gus sits at a sideline table during intermission, radiating fabulosity in leopard print and long gold nails. And each incredible performer speaks to us in death drops and duck walks as much as through Webber's songs.

I doubt one could apply ball to any show. Titanic or Wicked or Phantom are too localized to stave off plastic representation (although Pippin provides an enticing possibility). And I doubt The Jellicle Ball would survive a move up to Broadway. The ball effect would become diluted up in the nosebleeds of a cavernous theatre. But unsurprisingly, the show's run at the Perelman, way downtown by One World Trade Center, has been extended to August 11th as of this writing. This is my paltry attempt to make sure it doesn't stop there.