Loading summary
Transcript4 lines
- [00:01]
A
When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want, like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha chings from every channel right in one spot and turn real time reporting into big time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today.
- [00:39]
B
Attempting to superimpose a modern, unique concept over top an already iconic piece of art is perilous. If your attempt is too heavy handed or too cute by half, you risk not only angering fans of the original, but also alienating otherwise receptive viewers by becoming too navel gazy obsessed with a sparkle of your own cleverness. To thread the needle on an ambitious artistic endeavor such as this, you need a crystal clear vision that not only amplifies the original work, but also adds new layers of context, depth and creativity. A Herculean lift such as this requires a team of artists to not only know and appreciate the original for all of its strengths and weaknesses, but also feel the new concept deep in their bones. This is not something that all artists can handle. This is not something that all creatives have the ability to execute. But fortunately, Jellicles can. Jellicles absolutely freaking do. Welcome to Broadway Radio. My name is Matt Tiamineni and today I am reviewing the Broadway production of Cats, the Jellicle Ball currently running at the Broadhurst Theatre. It doesn't take but a few seconds to realize that transporting the admittedly kooky concept of the musical into the world of ballroom is one of the most thrilling and fully realized theatrical reinventions you ever likely to see. As is described in a very useful flyer stuffed into your Playbill, ballroom is a culture made up primarily of queer people of color that provides a refuge for and celebration of those who are often shunned by society as a whole, and all too often even in other queer spaces as well. The ballroom community is structured around houses that provide support and mentorship to younger members. These houses are led by mothers and fathers, a reminder that one's house and ballroom as a whole often serves as a chosen family. When biological relatives don't possess the capacity to love in the ways that they should. This creates a deeply held respect and reverence for those who came before that is of the utmost importance in the artform's community. Ballroom events feature Runway based competitions in categories that can encompass voguing, fashion, gender, expression, realness, beauty, attitude and imagination. While ballroom is not the same thing as a drag Ball, and certainly not the same thing as RuPaul's Drag Race. If that is your closest cultural reference point, it can at least provide a partial window into the pageantry, categories and competitive showmanship of the Jellicle Ball. Spectacle, glamour and creativity are all deeply woven into the fibers of ballroom, as is the importance of finding a name that accurately represents your Persona. As the show opens, we go from Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats to the naming of Cats to the invitation to the Jellicle Ball. It becomes very easy to understand that while no one could ever really give you a satisfactory answer before, with this new lens we finally know what jellicle means, at least in this context, it's a synonym for queer. So when Dudney Joseph Jr. S manka strap invites the Jellicle Cats to come out tonight, that is no longer just an invitation to attend the Jellicle Ball. It is also a promise that whoever you are, however, you have felt marginalized that you are safe within these walls and with these people, to be the version of yourself you have always envisioned being. The seamless layering of this new understanding is honestly as emotional as it is exciting. Even though I had seen the show off Broadway, when the full company started singing Jellicle Cats Come Out Tonight directly to the audience, I was moved to tears. It was not only a welcoming in the context of the show or even simply for the audience to engage with a piece, but it felt like permission for everyone in the Broadhurst to put down whatever their individual burdens might have been and at least for two and a half hours hours let their innermost joys radiate out and wash over the rest of the audience and performers. It felt like a guarantee that a good time would be had by all. Directors Zylon Levingston and Bill Rauch, along with dramaturg and gender consultant Josephine Kearns, have gone so far beyond what normally passes as reimagination in the theater. Cat's the Jellicle Ball is not just Hamlet in modern dress or even Macbeth set on the moon. It is a fully realized, dramaturgically sound improvement on the original, which I was already quite fond of. Cats in all its form, has always been a bizarre proposition. T.S. eliot's poems can border on the nonsensical, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's music is at his trippy synth enhanced best. No matter how well the ballroom concept works, there is just no erasing the inherently ridiculous and hallucinatory nature of the property. However, instead of steering away from the more confounding elements of cats, Levingston and Rauch embrace them, often with a winking and knowing nod to the past. Despite the fact that the cats are no longer literal cats and the Jellicoe Ball is now more than just a metaphysical competition to see who gets to be reincarnated. Although it is still that the show remains as it always has been, Cats and the directors and designers, especially costume designer Queen Jean, have kept references and Easter eggs to the original production sprinkled in throughout. Those callbacks show up everywhere. Victoria's all white initial costume, Andre de Shields massive mane which calls to mind the hood on old Deuteronomy's original costume and the fact that while they might not be in feline adorned unitards anymore, every single cat is constantly at play, meaning that wherever you look at any moment of the show, there is always something fun and or compelling happening on and sometimes off stage. Of course, the biggest connection from the Jellicoe Ball to the original production is is the presence of Ken Ard. Having originated the role of Macavity in the Broadway production, he has been brought back as a reimagined version of Griddlebone, now known as DJ Griddlebone. The cast of the Jellicle Ball is a wonderful blend of musical theater triple threats and ballroom vets and in some cases performers who have experience in both. And what is most exciting about this is that the ballroom artists are not treated as decoration in a half hearted attempt to curry authenticity. They are central to the production, bringing an authority and specificity that musical theater performers alone could not manufacture. Ballroom staple Primo the Ballerino plays Tumble Brutus. Robert Silk Mason, the father of the House of Silk is Mephistofeles ballroom star and choreographer Leiomy is Macavity Ballroom hall of Fame legend Temperist Chastity Moore is Grizabella and the icon of the art form Junior labeija plays Gus. They are joined by more seasoned musical theater performers. Xavier Reyes as Jenny Anydots, Emma Sophia as Skimbleshanks, Nora Schell as Bustopher Jones, Jonathan Burke and Deva Huesca as Mongo, Jerry and Rumpelteaser respectively. Bryson Battle as Jelly Lorem, Teddy Wilson Jr. As syllabub and Sydney James Harcourt as perhaps the most jacked Rum Tum Tugger you will ever see. At times it was impossible for me to take my eyes off Robert Silk Mason, a tall, lithe Juilliard trained dancer who as his name would suggest moves like Silk as the magical Mr. Mistoffeles in the first act. Emma Sophia is the young Cassandra but in Act 2, she transforms into Skimbleshanks, the Railway Cat. No longer prowling an old fashioned passenger car, but now apparently on the MTA's payroll, she is funny and charismatic and delivers a knockout performance. Sydney James Harcourt brings all of the swagger and sex appeal that a Rum Tum Tugger in this version of the show demands, while also putting the best ABS on Broadway on full display as old Deuteronomy. De Shields adds such an air of gravitas that you have no trouble understanding why all of the Jellicles revere him so, because it is clear that the actors on stage with him feel the exact same way that those of us in the audience do about the Legend now the Tony winning icon is not asked to do much traditional singing, often speak singing his way through the role, but his simple, fabulous presence at the ball feels like an elegant and much deserved infusion of grandeur. Now the one area where the show's translation to ballroom didn't quite click as seamlessly for me was with Grizabella. In the original. Her rejection by the other Jellicle cats is somewhat vague, but essentially centers around the fact that she was no longer the glamour cat of old and had seemingly hit a rough patch in her life and her physical appearance told the tale. While it was undoubtedly cold, it did somewhat track within the show's strange feline social order here. However, after the production has so beautifully established ballroom as a space of chosen family, radical acceptance and reverence for elders, the community's cruelty towards Grizabella is more difficult to reconcile without some sort of context that never comes. That is not to take anything away from tempress Chasity Moore, who gives Grizabella a wounded dignity that keeps the character's ache grounded. In this reimagined version of the show, however, the treatment of the glamour cat is the rare instance where the original structure and the new concept do not map perfectly onto one another. While everyone in Cats is excellent, the show's pageant like structure makes it difficult to single out one star, which might be for the best since Arturo Lyons and Omari Wyle's choreography is ultimately the production's headliner. With a healthy respect for Gillian Lynn's original work, the pair pulls the show out of the 1980s London junkyard and makes it feel completely at home on the glorious Rachel Hauck catwalk. Set with voguing Runway work hands, performance dips, spins and poses, every number has its own choreographic identity, allowing the show to function as a fully realized ballroom competition while still maintaining the original's presentational vignette structure. The movement is athletic, precise, playful, sensual and explosive. And despite the fact that people are often dancing all across the stage and into the aisles, it's never merely busy. It always feels rooted in character, category and community. Yet another example of how delightfully well the concept and source material blend together to make something satisfyingly familiar, but also unmistakably fresh and authentic. Even if you have never understood the appeal of Cats, this production makes the strongest possible case for why this strange, singular show has endured. And for all of its conceptual brilliance, Cats the Jellicoe Ball is also one of the most joyful, celebratory experiences you might ever have at the theater. There is an alchemy in this production that feels nearly heaven sent. Or, more appropriately, Heaviside layer sent. The reinvention of Cats into the Jellicoe Ball is not a success because it into fits, fixes or distances itself from the original version of the show. Instead, it proves that the weirdness of Cats was never a bug, it was a feature. Cats, the Jellicle Ball simply found the community, vocabulary, and visual world that can make that weirdness finally feel not only coherent but profound. While we might never truly know what Cats is actually about, what we are now certain of is that whether feline or fabulous, outcast or icon, everyone is welcome at the Jellicle Ball. Cats the Jellicle Ball is currently running at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway. We appreciate your support of Broadway radio. If you want more Broadway radio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio thank you for listening. This has been Matt Tamminini and I'll talk to you.
- [12:10]
C
Ready or not. Summer is coming and Wayfair's Memorial Day clearance is on now. Right now through May 25th. Get up to 70% off everything home at Wayfair plus score amazing doorbuster deals all sale long and surprise flash deals on Memorial Day. We're talking thousands of products at every style and budget. Now is the time to save big on must have tabs for your patio, backyard and beyond. These savings won't last, so don't wait. Shop Wayfair's Memorial Day Clearance now through
- [12:36]
A
May 25th Wayfair Every style, every home.