Cats: The Jellicle Ball ★★★★★

Midway through John Guare’s seminal 1990 play Six Degrees of Separation, a well-to-do Upper East Side couple, Flan and Ouisa Kittredge, find themselves having to explain to their incredulous children and their snarky children’s friends how they got duped by Paul, a con man who pretended to have gotten mugged in Central Park to get access to their apartment and their lives. Paul claimed to be the son of Sidney Poitier, that his father was in town auditioning actors for the movie version of Cats, and that he would get them small parts in the film as thanks for their kindness.

Ben: He promised you parts in Cats?

Ouisa: It wasn’t just that. It was fun.

Tess: You went to Cats. You said it was an all-time low in a lifetime of theater-going.

Ouisa: Film is a different medium.

Tess: You said Aeschylus did not invent theater to have it end up a bunch of chorus kids wondering which of them will go to Kitty Kat Heaven.

Aeschylus certainly didn’t. But those stagy kitties didn’t care; they danced and sang in the West End for 21 years and on Broadway for 18, an enormous success despite being intensely disliked in many a quarter.

The film, on the other paw, had practically no fans. When the movie version of Cats was finally made and released at the tail end of 2019, The Guardian described it as a film that would “haunt viewers for generations,” and Elle magazine headlined its review with: “Cats: This Movie Is a Nightmare That Won’t End.” So hated was the film that some quippers even blamed it for the 2020 coronavirus epidemic that would soon paralyze the entire globe.

Meow.

Well, those nightmares have ended — at least the ones associated with the much-maligned stage original — because against all odds and reason, this radically rethought version of the show, now called Cats: The Jellicle Ball, is a raging success, a miraculous triumph of invention and audacity.

Based on T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, the original musical Cats succeeded not because of its lame, inane, and suspense-free narrative, but for what worked: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s often glorious ear-worm score, John Napier’s great costumes, and Gillian Lynne’s iconic choreography, all combined skillfully by director Trevor Nunn, who envisioned it all as a conceptual revue that could work globally.

But here’s the tea: It’s because Cats has no real story that Cats: The Jellicle Ball can succeed.

Taking its cue from the Jellicle Ball referenced in Eliot’s poem The Song of the Jellicles, the show now takes place in a Harlem ballroom competition, where attendees compete in walks for their respective houses for trophies. The Ballroom scene, a longtime safe haven for LGBTQ+ people of color for more than a century, became famous to the general public in the early 1990s with the double whammy of Madonna’s “Vogue” and Jennie Livingston’s doc Paris is Burning, and resurfaced more recently with the Emmy-winning Pose in 2018, followed by HBO’s Legendary in 2020.

Unlikely as the mélange is, Ballroom culture is on Broadway, and slaying. The dramatic stakes are now significantly higher, and for a simple reason. In the original, a tribe of cats gathers in a junkyard and performs for each other, with one lucky feline to be chosen by Old Deuteronomy, the tribe’s leader, but there’s zero suspense about the kitty who’s going to be chosen: Grizabella, a former glamour cat who’s fallen on hard times.

But not too hard, since Lloyd Webber gives her the show’s hit ballad, “Memory,” not once but twice, at the ends of each of the show’s two acts. So it’s no surprise when Grizabella gets to jump on an old tire and ascend to the Heaviside Layer, a mystical realm high in the atmosphere where one cat gets to be reborn.

In Cats: The Jellicle Ball, there are now competitions galore within houses of chosen family members battling against each other in walks in various vogue and fashion categories such as “Virgin Vogue”, “Pretty Boy Realness”, and “Opulence”. Category winners ultimately compete for the grand prize, and even though it’s still easy to guess that Ms. Griz is gonna take the ultimate trophy, much more catty fun is had along the way as earnestness is replaced by much throwing of shade.

So prepare to be gagged, as these Jellicle cats are dancing, singing, and death dropping through a sequined tempest in some of the most wowza costumes to ever hit a Broadway stage. In addition to conceiving this fantastic reinvention of the material with humor and energetic verve, directors Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch have assembled an amazing team to put this gay fever dream on stage, with special snaps to choreographers Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons and costume designer Qween Jean, a mighty trio that manages to give an endless, exciting variety of moves and looks from beginning to finale

And then there’s the stupendous cast bringing the house down, replete with — count’em, baby — four icons, all receiving their deserved due. Theatre legend André De Shields, still holding audiences rapt at 80 years of age, gives Old Deuteronomy a fierceness heretofore unfelt. Making their Broadway debuts are Ballroom icons Leiomy, who was a judge on Legendary, and Junior LaBeija, from the Paris is Burning doc, who bring their remarkable histories to Macavity and Gus, respectively. And of course there is “Tempress” Chasity Moore, who gives Grizabella the depth of soul that significantly elevates this show’s heart.

The entire troupe of younger cast members inject their infectious vivacity into every moment. All are excellent, and a few stand out simply because they get more to do, especially diva Robert “Silk” Mason as Magical Mister Mistoffelees, sweet Baby Byrne as Victoria, and the charismatic Sydney James Harcourt as Rum Tum Tigger, who is impossible to miss because he is the sexy cat with the skimpiest costumes.

Leaving the theater, one still does wonder why good old Gus isn’t really considered a contender to ascend, and, if Old Deuteronomy ultimately has the final say on the victor, how’s he ever going to win? It’s all nitpicks in the grand scheme of things, though, because Cats: The Jellicle Ball is so fun even the Kittredges of the stuffy Upper East Side would give the show 10s across the board.