Theatre Gay Summer
A review of CATS: THE JELLICLE BALL and MIDNIGHT COLESLAW: TALES FROM BEYOND THE CLOSET
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1981 musical Cats was a major obsession in my childhood. My parents bought the VHS and I watched it repeatedly. I would perform the scenes in our living room. It is the show that piqued my interest in the theatre. The synth-heavy score is extraterrestrial and subliminally gay. It was the longest-running show on Broadway until it closed in 2000, was revived again in 2016, and now a new production has arrived in downtown New York at the Perelman Arts Center with a gay ballroom concept called Cats: The Jellicle Ball and is near-perfect.
Based on the poems of T.S. Eliot, Cats: The Jellicle Ball follows the Jellicle cats as they gather for one night to determine who will go to the Heavyside Layer and be reborn into a new Jellicle life. However, in this production, “Cat” refers to the persona rather than a literal cat on stage, which is closer to what Lloyd Webber had envisioned for the show. When the original production was pitched to T.S. Eliot’s widow, Webber saw the cats more like the British dance troupe Hot Gossip. Directors Bill Rauch and Zhailon Levingston’s embrace of gay ballroom culture for this new production adds a sense of urgency to the story. Community, competition, redemption, and love, often lost in discussions about Cats, shine through in this production.
On a runway designed by Rachel Hauck, our Master of Ceremonies, Munkustrap (Dudney Joseph Jr.) introduces “CATegories,” such as Male Realness, and Tag Team. Rum Tum Tugger (Sydney James Harcourt), seduces the audience during the Male Realness category. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteezer (Jonathan Burke and Dava Huesca) have a dance-off with another duo with choreography by Arturo Lyons and Omari Wiles. Their fluid movement honors the paganism that Gillian Lynne aimed for in her original choreography, while also bringing the sharp style of gay ballroom dancing.
Old Deuteronomy (André De Shields) oversees the Jellicle ball by choosing who will be reborn to a new Jellicle life. De Shields is iconic in this role and owns everything he does onstage. The emotional center of Cats will always be Grizabella. Her 11-clock number, “Memory,” appeals to Old Deuteronomy for her Jellicle rebirth and is also a famous gay banger thanks to Elaine Paige, Barbra Streisand, and Celine Dion. In The Jellicle Ball, Grizabella (“Tempress” Chasity Moore) is a former reigning ballroom champion who has since drifted away from the scene. With the help of Sillabub (Teddy Wilson Jr.), a young cat in the scene, Moore stunningly belts her way to the Heavyside Layer. The Jellicle Ball beautifully honors ballroom culture from the past by casting Junior LaBeija (Paris is Burning) to play Gus, the “theatre cat” and playing a moving montage of old footage from older ballroom competitions during the song “The Moments of Happiness.” Rauch and Levingston’s production is a major achievement for New York theatre and its gay culture.
If we take the train uptown to The Tank, Joey Merlo’s new play with excellent direction from Nick Browne, Midnight Coleslaw: Tales from Beyond the Closet is an absolute gay delight! Midnight Coleslaw (Charlene Incarnate) is our host for the evening and is joined by her hilarious talking skull sidekick Boner (Amando Houser) as they present three one-act plays! Their relationship is similar to that of Hedwig and Yitzhak from Hedwig and the Angry Inch in which Coleslaw is often irritated by Boner. Midnight Coleslaw follows a structure that harkens back to Stephen King’s Creepshow or The Last Drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs but mixed with a campy drag show.
We begin with The Chair. Babe (Rebecca Robertson) and Hun (Curt Gillen) are a young couple who bring home a chair from the street, but they don’t realize that the chair has a life of its own. Robertson and Gillen's fantastic movement work and Joyce Lai’s dreamy scenic design imbue so much life into the chair. It’s magical and eerie to watch. The chair acts as a conduit to explore an open relationship and repression of the true self, which makes Joey Merlo one of our most exciting and intriguing contemporary playwrights.
Then we move to Daddy’s Girl and meet Pat (Jan Leslie Harding) and Mel (Priscilla Flores), a lesbian couple who are in the process of moving Pat’s mom to an assisted living facility when all of a sudden, Pat’s dead father (John William Watkins) is brought back from the dead to check in on the family. Pat never had the opportunity to come out to Daddy and he’s loving but very old-school. Thus, a competition for Pat’s love and attention ensues from Mel and Daddy, as Pat falls back into child-like behavior, which all three actors perform with great hilarity.
Our final play of the evening is Alone Again starring the marvelous and magnetic David Greenspan as Dr. Humphrey Renfield, waiting for the clock to strike midnight to celebrate his 69th birthday. Ticking sounds are heard throughout the scene, adding total suspense. What will Dr. Renfield find at midnight? As Renfield waits, he reflects on a gay New York that no longer exists where men “pumped life into each other until that great wet wave of desire reached its pinnacle in ecstatic moans and screams of pure and unadulterated pleasure.” Greenspan is a master storyteller even as he sits for most of the play. With the delicate wave of his hand, he mesmerizes the audience. Alone Again contemplates a fear many gay men feel as they age: who will be there with us at the end? If we’re lucky, we’ll find Midnight Coleslaw with a birthday cake and her fellow gay misfits.
A friend once asked me why so many gay people are drawn toward the theatre. Is it the innate understanding of artifice and truth we possess? Quite possibly. But the theatre is also a Dionysian party when it’s done well, and The Jellicle Ball and Midnight Coleslaw end in joyous gay dance celebrations. It’s exactly what we need in this Pride month, so I declare that the Summer of 2024 is Theatre Gay Summer!
Cats: The Jellicle Ball is running at the Perelman Performing Arts Center through August 11th.
Midnight Coleslaw: Tales from Beyond the Closet was performed at The Tank from May 31st- June 23rd.