A euphoric NYC reinvention of a Broadway classic

There’s a loud, pulsing party happening every night in Midtown.

Bodies gyrate in a warehouse as the club beats nntz nntz. The neon outfits range from “Let’s Get Physical” to fully architectural while performers battle each other for glory on the runway. On the sidelines, frenzied revelers wave folding fans that blow air around the venue like a cyclone.

And what’s the hot, sexy music that’s getting everybody all revved up?

“Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat.”

That’s right — Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats,” that old jellicle juggernaut, is back on Broadway with a fabulous new glow-up. Smartly retitled “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” the awfully clever show sashayed open Tuesday night at the Broadhurst Theatre after a successful run off-Broadway in the summer of 2024.

What was once a spooky and balletic spectacle of 1980s excess, best known for the hit song “Memory” and purring chorines crawling on the seats, is now a glitter bomb of euphoric pandemonium. I was delighted, and happily proven wrong, to find it’s even better and more form-fitting uptown. You’ll have the time of your nine lives.

Good luck naming a musical revival that has ever departed so radically from the original. In concept, “Jellicle Ball” is about as risky as they come.

Why? Well, instead of cats, the characters are humans.

Sounds ridiculous, I know. But what is Lloyd Webber’s love-it-or-hate-it “Cats” if not completely ridiculous?

The fresh idea from co-directors Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch works. It just works. The inventive pair have done a brilliant job with their de-meowing.  

T.S. Eliot’s junkyard cats from London — Munkustrap (Dudney Joseph Jr.), Old Deuteronomy (André De Shields) and the rest — have been reimagined as humans in New York. And the jellicle ball held to reach the Heaviside Layer has been morphed into a Harlem ball — a sizzling competition of fashion, attitude, dance and “vogueing.”

If you’ve ever watched “RuPaul’s Drag Race” or the documentary “Paris Is Burning,” you get the gist. Various “houses” convene under cover of night to express themselves and duke it out for trophies.

You see? That is the same plot, such as it is, of “Cats.”  

New York’s ballroom culture has a rich history worth learning, but “The Jellicle Ball” is here not to edutain, but rather entertain. And how.

The bash, in which choreographers Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons swap pirouettes and grand jetés for strip teases and death drops, is kicked off by DJ Griddlebone (Ken Ard, the original Macavity), who whips out a “Cats” Broadway cast recording LP to cheers from the crowd.

But the music isn’t really piped in. There is a live orchestra hidden from view, and every note of the score is played and every lyric is sung. Some are campily remixed a bit, such as “The Ethel Merman Disco Album.” What you’re ultimately hearing, though, is 100% “Cats.”

De Shields’ grand Old Deuteronomy enters like the pope in Vatican City to oversee the action — a royal procession that must be seen to be believed — and rotating celebrity guests judge the head-to-heads in various cat-egories.

For instance, Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat gets “Old Way vs. New Way.” So, the vivacious Emma Sofia is a saucy MTA conductor.

For “Tag Team,” twin kitties Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer (the marvelous Jonathan Burke and Dava Huesca), who are often portrayed as cockney burglars, use harsh and zany New Yawk accents.

The show’s dynamo standout, Sydney James Harcourt as the Rum Tum Tugger, is given “Realness.” Ripping his shirt off at every opportunity, the actor with a sumptuous voice and rockstar’s command of the stage turns the frisky feline from a jokey Jagger into a smoldering Usher.

Sometimes, the singing and spirited movement, which happen all over the Broadhurst, have Broadway polish. Elsewhere, it’s scrappier than at 3 a.m. at Pieces in Greenwich Village. That contrast, along with blending traditional musical theater with less-stuffy ballroom, gives the show its beating heart and eclectic personality. 

Two actors lend particular authenticity to the updated setting: Junior LaBeija as Gus the Theater Cat and “Tempress” Chasity Moore as poor, ostracized Grizabella.

Sixty-eight-year-old LaBeija, just about the best Gus I have ever seen, appeared in “Paris Is Burning” in 1990 and thus adds a natural authority and pathos to the aging, whiskered thespian. 

LaBeija is profoundly moving without trying to be and gets big laughs by simply lifting an eyebrow.

And Moore plays the “Memory” songstress who’s been kicked out of the club but is deep down the most deserving of the pack.

Like LaBeija, her emotion is earned and radiates effortlessly. The notes? Somewhat less so. While Moore sounds a lot better than she did off-Broadway, it’s still not your typical Broadway “Memory.” But nothing about this “Cats” is typical. That’s what’s special about it.

Without fail, the best Broadway shows are the off-the-charts inventive ones that could not have possibly originated anywhere else but the five boroughs. This season, that’s “The Jellicle Ball.”

Only in New York, kittens. Only in New York.