AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Despite being one of the biggest musicals of all time, Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Cats" is often a punchline, like here on Netflix's "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt."
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) So you thought that you would go up on that stage in your homemade costume and sing a bunch of nonsense in the middle of a Broadway show. Well, good for you, 'cause you just discovered the secret of "Cats."
RASCOE: But now a new take on "Cats" is winning rave reviews. Reporter Tracie Hunte tells us how "Cats" became the blueprint for the ideal queer ballroom musical.
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TRACIE HUNTE, BYLINE: "Cats" was once the longest-running show on Broadway. It's tagline, "Cats" - now and forever, seemed less like a slogan and more like destiny. The show grossed more than $400 million. There was a film adaptation in 2019, featuring stars like James Corden, Dame Judi Dench, and Taylor Swift.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CATS")
TAYLOR SWIFT: (Singing) Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity...
HUNTE: And it still tours the country some 40 years after its debut. But if you've somehow missed it, here's the rundown. Once a year, a bunch of cats, with names like Rum Tum Tugger and Mungojerrie and Mr. Mistoffelees, gather in a moonlit junkyard to sing and dance in the Jellicle Ball. At the end of the night, one of the cats is chosen to ascend to Cat Heaven to be reborn as a kitten. And that's pretty much it. The show quickly became a stand in for siliness and camp. But theater director Bill Rauch says that back in 1982, "Cats" was radical.
BILL RAUCH: And honestly, deeply kind of ritualistic and spiritual. In a way its success made people not always take it seriously as a work of art.
HUNTE: That radical tradition continues with "Cats: The Jellicle Ball," a reimagining of the original now playing at Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York City, where Rauch is the artistic director. In this version, there are no cats, no fur, no ears. Instead, they are trans and queer ball room performers. Rauch says it all started when he imagined an older gay man singing "Memory" in a gay bar. But in this version, the song is performed by "Tempress" Chasity Moore, a Black trans woman actor.
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CHASITY MOORE: (Singing) Memory - all alone in the moonlight. I can smile at the old days. Life was beautiful then.
RAUCH: I just thought those lyrics and that haunting melody in a queer context would be very moving.
HUNTE: Rauch realized a ballroom contest is a more appropriate setting for a Jellicle Ball.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, singing) Jellicles do and Jellicles can, Jellicles can and Jellicles do, Jellicle cats, and Jellicles...
HUNTE: Ballroom culture was developed in nightclubs in the late '70s and early '80s, primarily by Black and Latinx trans women and gay men. During these events, performers representing different houses compete in categories like face, body, runway, and vogue for cash prizes and trophies. It's like a fashion show, beauty pageant, dance contest and party, all in one. In this new production, the stage is a 50 foot runway. The cast is decked out in purple satin suits, sequined tops, tight mini dresses, and long, silky wigs and neon-colored afros. The dancing blends the ballet and modern from the original with voguing, a dance technique born in the ballroom. The one thing that remains unchanged is Andrew Lloyd Webber's score, with songs like "The Rum Tum Tugger."
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SYDNEY JAMES HARCOURT: (As Rum Tum Tugger, singing) If you offer me pheasant, I'd rather have grouse. If you put me in a house, I would much prefer a flat. If you put me in a flat then I'd rather have a house.
JOSEPHINE KEARNS: The two pieces of feedback I get most often are this made more sense of "Cats," and wasn't "Cats" already gay?
HUNTE: That's dramaturg and gender consultant Josephine Kearns. She says with its themes of rebirth and transformation, much of "Cats" does speak to the queer experience. In the show, cats are said to have three names - the names their owners give them, their nicknames, and a third name known only to themselves.
KEARNS: And I think probably every queer person can resonate with that on some level, right? And especially, like, as a trans person myself, who very actively changed my name.
HUNTE: Robert "Silk" Mason plays Mr. Mistoffelees, the magical cat who saves the day towards the end of the show.
First of all, how tall are you?
ROBERT MASON: I'm 6'3", but in heels, I think I'm about, like 6'8", 6'9".
HUNTE: Mason first moved to New York City to attend Juilliard's dance program. But one night, they went to what they thought was a Halloween party in the Bronx.
MASON: Tell me why I walk in, and I hear people just clapping and cheering stuff, and I was like, I'm pretty sure I can do this. I have the video posted on my Instagram living to this day.
(CHEERING)
MASON: I think I did, like, eight to 10 hitch kicks, and I went until a dip. And I kept going, and everybody was just living.
HUNTE: Mason says they fell in love with the ballroom community.
MASON: Everyone around can really just exist in the space together and live through an art form that really fuels us and helps us in our everyday lives.
HUNTE: By grounding "Cats" in a real place with real people drawing on their own experiences, "Cats: The Jellicle Ball" transforms the original from camp and artifice to authenticity. And realness is what ball room is all about.
SYDNEY BALOUE: My name is Sydney Baloue. I am a writer, a producer and a journalist and a voguer. I'm also a ballroom historian.
HUNTE: Baloue says ballroom categories like realness or your ability to pass yourself off as a specific archetype - the pretty boy, the fashion model, the executive - reflect the struggles of trans people in mainstream society.
BALOUE: So there's a level of, like, this is my true, authentic self to the nth degree. Even though society claims that I have no right to do these things or what have you, here is me showing that that is actually not true.
HUNTE: The most meaningful change is how the show handles the character Grizabella. In the original, Grizabella is an older cat who stalks the stage in tattered furs. The other cats shun her, but at the end, she's chosen to ascend to cat heaven. In this version, Grizabella is a founding house mother who's since fallen on hard times. As she sings "Memory," she comes out to the runway in a glittery, black gown.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "CATS: THE JELLICLE BALL")
MOORE: (As Grizabella, singing) I remember the time I knew what happiness was.
HUNTE: Co-director Bill Rauch.
RAUCH: We wanted to say Grizabella is transforming. Grizabella is moving back into the world with a new sense of confidence and facing the day on the streets of New York in a new way.
HUNTE: She then walks up a set of stairs that lead to a door. When she opens it, instead of heaven, the theater is filled with the sounds of New York City. For NPR News, I'm Tracie Hunte in New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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