The Tamesis
Legendary Broadway actor André De Shields stands behind a table decorated with gold tassels. He held up a small cat-shaped sign that said “Meow.”
That’s the first thing I see when I go into rehearsal Cat: Jellicle Ball Located at New 42 Studios, it was the company’s last time in the space before moving into its Broadway headquarters. (Previews begin March 18 at the Broadhurst Theater.) After a runaway success at the Perelman Center for the Performing Arts (PAC) downtown, this unique reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classic full-scale musical—now rooted in Harlem’s dancehall culture—cat Found a new life.
Rows of people took their seats in front of a makeshift stage, a long track reminiscent of balls past and present. The trophies, topped with little golden cats, line the back of the stage, ready to be snatched away by the cast of the show. Times Square ads flicker behind studio glass windows.
Nora Schell, the show’s Bustopher Jones, heats their voices to the tinkling piano. Baby Byrne, the dance captain and Victoria, stretched a leg over her face and slipped into a pair of shiny knee-high boots. Primo Thee Ballerino (our Tumblebrutus) is turned up on his back and wearing boots with little cat-like claws attached to them. Silk, who has played the leggy Mr. Mystophiles for decades, twists their limbs toward the sky. Xavier Reyes, who plays Jennyanydots, sauntered away in a leopard and tiger print coat and gold heels with cigarette bows. Meanwhile, dancehall icon Junior LaBeija, the production’s Gus the Theater Cat, sits nearby.
What followed was a performance so immersive, energetic, and infectiously joyful that I lost track of how long I had been sitting there. (The show is 2 hours and 45 minutes long, including intermission, but it doesn’t feel like it.) Shouts of “Yes, henny!” The audience erupted with strange chants of “Pump, mother, pump!” As each ball category is revealed and each character introduced through song, there are voices from other performers.
As with PAC’s production, influences from gospel to house, fashion to ballet to jazz abound (courtesy of co-choreographers Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons), and we follow the stories of these cats at the ball, where the ultimate prize is reborn. Dancehall icon and ‘Fashion Wonder Woman’ Leiomy has our hearts fluttering with her playful Macavity. Sydney James Harcourt becomes our resident heartthrob as Rum Tum Tugger. I got goosebumps when Queen Chasity Moore, who plays Grizabella, sang “Memory.” It seems like I never understood this song until now.
For a while it seemed like the original incarnation catThe show continues to be performed around the world and has become such a cliche that high school drama teachers implore students to avoid watching the show during audition songs. (The immediate 2019 movie adaptation didn’t help.) But now, with Jellicle ballI wonder if maybe this is the version of the show that should have existed from the beginning. In this iteration, the cats live in a world with stakes that’s more than just fantasy.
View more rehearsal content Cat: Jellicle Ball— opening on Broadway this April — below.
