Cats: The Jellicle Ball (Broadhurst Theatre)

By Harry Forbes

Watching the current reworking of Cats, I couldn't help recalling my experience at the original Broadway production shortly after it opened. I sat behind an English woman who grew visibly agitated as the evening progressed. During intermission, she sobbed to her companions, "They've ruined it, they've ruined it."

I suspected she had been one of the post-Elaine Paige Grizabellas from the original London production. Whether her distress stemmed from the textual and musical alterations — of which there were several — or simply from a perceived dilution of the show's essential Englishness, I never learned. But I couldn't help wondering, with no small amusement, what she'd make of this hugely revamped revival, now on Broadway following an acclaimed run last year at the Perelman Performing Arts Center.

The show has been thoroughly — and quite brilliantly — reset in the 1980s ballroom culture, where LGBTQ+ performers strutted elaborate costumes on the runway, competing for coveted trophies. Since Cats — based on T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats — is essentially a series of vaudeville turns held together by the slenderest of storylines, it adapts surprisingly well to the new treatment.

That said, the concept took some warming to on my part, and I suspect it won't be everyone's cup of tea — though my audience was wildly enthusiastic from the first number. I left the theater feeling I had witnessed something genuinely special.

To the production's credit, the score is played more or less intact, in the correct song order, with lyrics unchanged despite their numerous references to things both feline and quintessentially English. As far as I can tell, only two numbers have been cut entirely: the "Pekes and Pollicles" episode in the first act and "Growltiger's Last Stand" in the second. Otherwise, The Jellicle Ball hews scrupulously to Eliot and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. The songs don't always fit the literal situations precisely, but they consistently deliver emotional truth.

Lloyd Webber's richly varied score — one of his very best — sounds as good as ever. For all the jokes Cats inspired in its day, it's worth remembering what a boldly audacious concept it was, and what a hot ticket too. The original Trevor Nunn staging, with its iconic Gillian Lynne choreography, made its record-breaking way around the world, and I treasure it still. But this version is entirely its own thing.

Directed by Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch, the production pays poignant homage to the ballroom scene in a moving slide-show montage at the top of Act Two. The reimagined choreography, the clever work of Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons, crackles with invention. Kai Harada's sound design is, as is too often the case these days, overly amplified — but things settle appropriately for the score's quieter, more reflective moments.

The cast is impressive across the board. André De Shields is a far cry from the richly sonorous bass-baritones of London originator Brian Blessed and Broadway's Ken Page, but he makes Old Deuteronomy entirely his own. "Tempress" Chasity Moore makes Grizabella a genuinely touching outcast and delivers a moving "Memory." Junior LaBeija brings real poignancy to Gus, the aging theater cat. Sydney James Harcourt commands the stage as Rum Tum Tugger, and Robert "Silk" Mason dazzles as Magical Mister Mistoffelees.

The large ensemble alsoincludes Ken Ard (DJ Griddlebone), Kya Azeen (Etcetera), Bryson Battle (Jellylorum), Jonathan Burke (Mungojerrie), Baby Byrne (Victoria), Dava Huesca (Rumpleteazer), Dudney Joseph Jr. (Munkustrap), Leiomy (Demeter), Primo Thee Ballerino (Tumblebrutus), Xavier Reyes (Jennyanydots), Nora Schell (Bustopher Jones), Bebe Nicole Simpson (Demeter), Emma Sofia (Skimbleshanks), Garnet Williams (Bombalurina), and Teddy Wilson Jr. (Sillibub).

Rachel Hauck's evocative set beautifully conjures the ballroom atmosphere, and Qween Jean has a field day with an array of extravagantly dazzling costumes.

(Broadhurst Theatre, 235 West 44th Street; catsthejellicleball.com)

Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade: Nora Schell as ‘Bustopher Jones’

Sunset Blvd. (St. James Theatre)

By Harry Forbes

Andrew Lloyd-Webber is having quite the year. First, there was the acclaimed off-Broadway "Cat"-less reworking of his "now and forever" megahit. And now, here's a stripped down, highly stylized reversioning of the 1993 musical which, on the West End and Broadway, was dominated by John Napier’s majestic hydraulic set and grand staircase, and with the cast outfitted in Anthony Powell’s stylish period costumes. 

Director Jamie Lloyd’s current production dispenses with these traditional elements and even basic props, though Soutra Gilmour’s scenic design is striking and hardly less elaborate, in its way, than the original. And the cast is chicly decked out in non-period specific black (also Gilmour), on a mostly darkened smokey stage.

Lloyd’s 2023 production of “A Doll’s House” was virtually a blueprint for this, which includes an even more spectacular breaking of the fourth wall than he managed for that Ibsen revival. 

The four principals from London have been imported for Broadway. And they are all excellent: Tom Francis in the film’s William Holden role of writer Joe Gillis accidently finding himself on the property of silent film star recluse Norma Desmond when he drives there to evade his car being repossessed by the agents chasing him; David Thaxton as Norma’s fiercely protective manservant Max; and Grace Hodgett Young as Betty the studio assistant who falls for Joe, unaware of his involvement with the aging Norma. 

Apart from Lloyd’s imaginative staging, what keeps us riveted is Nicole Scherzinger’s unique portrayal of Norma. She is absolutely mesmerizing. 

Is she better than all the Normas who have come before her, such as Patti LuPone, Glenn Close, Betty Buckley, Elaine Paige and long run champ Petula Clark? I’d say it’s more a case of apples and oranges as the staging is so very different, and let's not forget those earlier interpreters of the role were each special in their own ways. 

Scherzinger certainly has the terpsichorean edge on her predecessors, as her lithe and sensual moves as devised by choreographer Fabian Aloise add another dimension to the role. So, too, there’s now a younger version of Norma sinuously danced by Hannah Yun Chamberlain. (Aloise’s choreography for the rest of the ensemble is quite striking as well, and gives them plenty to do in light of the streamlining elsewhere.)

Supporting roles like Joe’s friend (and Betty’s fiance) Artie (Diego Andres Rodrigquez), studio exec Sheldrake (Tyler Davis), and so on, have relatively brief onstage stime. The focus is squarely on the leads here. Even the role of legendary director Cecil B. DeMille is represented only by a giant silhouette voiced by one of the ensemble.

The score itself sounds as lush and sumptuous as ever under the direction of Alan Williams. There have been some cuts in the music including “The Lady’s Paying” and “Eternal Youth is Worth a Little Suffering” sequences. But those numbers incorporated tunes heard elsewhere in the score anyway.

The elaborate and impressive video design is the work of Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom. A webcam follows the characters throughout as their images are projected on the expansive backdrop. And, of course, it’s Norma who plays to the camera most of all, in sometimes a shamelessly hammy way perhaps not quite in the manner of a once great lady of the silver screen, even a self-deluded one

But no matter. It’s still a great performance. Throughout the evening, I kept wondering how Scherzinger would fare in the traditional Trevor Nunn staging. And I finally decided she’d be equally powerful even sans Lloyd’s almost Kabuki-like stylization. As it is, she earns two midshow ovations for her big numbers “With One Look” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye.” And at the end of the show, the audience rewards her and the rest of the cast with a thunderous and, unlike so many shows these days, absolutely genuine ovation.

There were projections in the original Nunn staging, but Lloyd really goes to town with the cinematic flourishes, even including movie style credits at the beginning and end of the show. 

Clearly this revisal is something to see.

(St. James Theatre, 246 West 44th Street; SunsetBlvdBroadway.com)

Photo by Marc Brenner: Nicole Scherzinger