Broadway musicals: Does 'Cats' have nine lives? Does 'Lost Boys' suck? Does 'Titanique' sink?

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In a Broadway play notable for the spot of its philharmonic revivals, determination has been immoderate interest that the champion caller philharmonic Tony Award class mightiness beryllium peculiarly scrawny this year.

The shows that near the biggest content connected maine — “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” “Ragtime” and “Chess” — are well-known properties. But these warhorses person been rejuvenated successful startling ways.

“Chess” returned to Broadway with a puckish caller publication and thunderous prima power, “Cats” came backmost successful a radically queer signifier and “Ragtime” reemerged with specified operatic unit that it seems to talk straight to our fractious governmental moment.

The past was much than prologue adjacent for the much salient caller musicals. Parody has go the highest signifier of flattery connected Broadway, to justice by the enthusiasm for “Schmigadoon!,” a cheeky emotion missive to the aureate property of Broadway, and “Titanique,” a dementedly campy clasp of the movie “Titanic.” And adjacent “The Lost Boys,” possibly the astir ambitious caller philharmonic of the season, takes its inspiration from a cult genre movie that serves arsenic a clip capsule of the wicked 1980s.

As the Greek tragedians and Shakespeare understood, it’s not the root of a play that matters but however successfully the worldly has been transformed. One tin decry Broadway’s fearful economical dependence connected the acquainted portion inactive recognizing, arsenic this sampling of the outpouring philharmonic play illustrates, that each creation is fundamentally an enactment of reinvention.

‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’

Hell has seemingly frozen over, due to the fact that “Cats” has someway go fashionable connected Broadway.

This Andrew Lloyd Webber juggernaut, which launched a question of British mega-musicals successful the 1980s, had a agelong and lucrative reign. But it was ne'er 1 of the chill kids. In Tony Kushner’s “Angels successful America,” Roy M. Cohn, trying to assuage an aggravated lawsuit helium can’t get disconnected the phone, offers theatre tickets to a amusement helium knows that this annoying rube volition like. (“Cats! It’s astir cats. Singing cats, you’ll emotion it.”)

Once tourer fodder, the philharmonic has remained a byword for hokey commercialism. The 2019 surface fiasco, which recovered countless ways to humiliate a formed that included Taylor Swift and Judi Dench, gave kitsch a atrocious name.

“Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” someway distancing itself from this history, has go 1 of the hottest tickets of the Broadway season. It didn’t instrumentality a miracle, lone a implicit conceptual overhaul.

The production, co-directed by Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch, jettisons the carnal masquerade for a antithetic benignant of resistance extravaganza. This fearless update takes its inspiration from the Harlem resistance balls that provided a showcase for LGBTQ+ fabulosity.

Imagine “Cats” thrown into a Cuisinart with the 1990 documentary “Paris is Burning” and the TV bid “Pose.” The effect is simply a raucous, interactive, sensory overload. The Broadhurst Theatre mightiness not beryllium a earthy spot for runway battles, but the venue has been transformed by the pulsating vigor of the institution and the originative daring of a revival that was primitively designed not for Broadway but for the Perelman Performing Arts Center successful Lower Manhattan successful 2024.

Sydney James Harcourt arsenic "Rumtumtugger."

The philharmonic turns retired to beryllium arsenic spryly flexible arsenic immoderate of its whiskered characters. Based connected immoderate airy verse by T.S. Eliot, “Cats” has communicative lines but much oregon little unfolds arsenic a revue. This caller mentation isn’t hemmed successful by the accepted structures of a publication musical, allowing it to play accelerated and escaped with the theatrical discourse without having to propulsion retired the communicative oregon the score.

The accumulation begins with a DJ (Ken Ard) rifling done a crate of vinyl records. Favorites by Diana Ross and Beyoncé are held up to the roar of the assemblage earlier pixie particulate is released from the musical’s archetypal Broadway formed album.

Lloyd Webber inactive exerts creator power done the score, which is treated excessively reverently. Fewer songs would person made the update much lithe and ebullient. The accumulation becomes a spot of an endurance test. Lyrics drown successful the murk of excessive amplification. Not that I’m caterwauling astir mislaid Lloyd Webber rhymes, but the philharmonic numbers commencement to heap up.

There’s nary Betty Buckley successful the formed to catapult “Memory,” the show’s indelible powerfulness ballad, to the Heaviside Layer, the onshore of rebirth for 1 fortunate chosen cat. Yet determination are much than capable compensating pleasures.

First among these is the production’s dynamically worked-out thematic concept. The choreography by Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons is exhilarating successful the mode it sets successful question a wide scope of assemblage types, sex expressions and carnal abilities, to accidental thing of flamboyant hairsbreadth styles and finger-snapping fashions. Difference successful ways inactive not ever appreciated is fiercely celebrated.

The costumes by Qween Jean person an extravagant splendor that marque it intolerable to not privation to onslaught a pose. Some of the outfits look to confer the powerfulness of flight, though that illusion is fostered by the delirious vigor of quality forms liberated from conformity.

André De Shields, Tony-winning royalty, presides implicit this Jellicle Ball successful the relation of Old Deuteronomy. With his gray-and-white mane sleekly accentuating his achromatic and lavender ensemble, helium struts with an eminence that had maine picturing Eartha Kitt successful a Bob Fosse spectacular. His expansive entranceway unsocial is worthy the terms of admission.

“Cats: The Jellicle Ball” didn’t marque maine rethink my sentiment of the musical, though this hoary feline truly mightiness person 9 lives.

‘The Lost Boys’

“The Lost Boys,” a philharmonic spun from Joel Schumacher’s 1987 fearfulness comedy, won maine implicit contempt my antipathy to vampire schlock. Maybe I conscionable grew retired of my youthful involvement successful the genre, but the astir terrifying facet of the movie for maine wasn’t the menace of bloodsucking ghouls but the implicit nightmare of reliving 1980s mullets and trench coats.

Michael Arden, who won a Tony for directing past year’s champion philharmonic winner, “Maybe Happy Ending,” infuses his visually spectacular accumulation of “The Lost Boys” with a refreshing 21st period sensitivity. Beginning with a clip of Ronald Reagan addressing the federation connected the taxable of “family values,” the amusement exposes the cramped presumption of specified governmental propaganda with an inclusive sensibility that recognizes the motivation powerfulness of recovered families.

The musical, featuring a publication by David Hornsby and Chris Hoch and a people by the Rescues that dispenses with the movie’s cover-heavy soundtrack, is undeniably overstuffed. There are much impulses and ideas than tin beryllium dramatically metabolized. The 2nd enactment not lone has immoderate dormant wood, but the past 20 minutes feels similar a contention to the decorativeness line. For each the staging prowess, the last conflict country leaves 1 much agog connected screen. And an unnecessary coda that comes after the curtain telephone ne'er should person made it retired of rehearsals.

But Arden and his squad marque “The Lost Boys” astir truthful overmuch much than convulsive thrills. The eventual showdown is betwixt sleek vampire conformity and nerdy yet heroic individuality. The staging is simply a marvel of peculiar effects, but the astir spectacular coup is the injection of emotionally resonant meaning.

I had ne'er heard of the Rescues, an L.A. indie stone set capable to accommodate to the communicative demands of the stage. Particularly memorable are the romanticist numbers betwixt Michael (LJ Benet), the elder Emerson lad who moved to California from Arizona with their mother, and Star (Maria Wirries), the goth miss trying to support Michael from David (Ali Louis Bourzgui), the glam-rock vampire set person who has already sunk his fangs into her.

LJ Benet and Ali Louis Bourzgui successful "The Lost Boys."

Benet and Wirries, galvanic talents with stadium-worthy voices, marque the opus “Now, Forever,” an instant classic. And, of course, thing that Shoshana Bean sings arsenic Lucy, the Emerson boys’ mother, is gold, adjacent if the book-writing can’t rather support up with the affectional extent she brings to the role.

Benjamin Pajak’s Sam, Michael’s younger brother, discovers implicit clip that what different radical telephone “queer” is really the root of his “superpower” — an penetration that erupts successful a philharmonic fig staged with comic publication gleefulness. Sam has teamed up with a brace of sibling vampire hunters known arsenic the Frog Brothers (Miguel Gil and Jennifer Duka), and unneurotic these outcasts set unneurotic to instrumentality connected the atrocious guys.

Arden isn’t acrophobic to fto weirdos beryllium weirdos successful a philharmonic that has a steadfast suspicion of aboveground perfection. Bourzgui’s David has each the hallmarks of a stone idol — sultry looks, a sinister grin and endowment to burn. Benet’s Michael doesn’t instantly permission america starstuck, but implicit the people of the philharmonic helium steals the amusement with his vocal prowess and brooding sincerity. (Both Bourzgui and Benet are making electrical Broadway debuts, and “The Lost Boys” benefits from their antithetic ways of commanding the stage.)

Wirries’ Star does much than flirt with the acheronian side, but successful resisting the temptation to go portion of the vampire battalion she becomes worthy of Michael’s obsessive love. Paul Alexander Nolan’s Max, the proprietor of a boardwalk video store who crashes into the lives of the Emerson family, puts connected a Clark Kent facade to conceal his nefarious change ego. Bean’s Lucy is taken successful but defends her household erstwhile the monster reveals himself.

Recognizing evil isn’t ever truthful easy. Pajak’s Sam indispensable thrust location the acquisition that the existent vampires are those creatures who effort to bargain your existent psyche — your individuality.

The production, afloat of sensational aerial maneuvers and fog-strewn scenic thrills, is mesmerizing. But unlike “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” spectacle isn’t allowed to overshadow the story. Something preciously quality survives the supernatural barrage, and it’s this tender prime that rescues “The Lost Boys” from the jaws of vampire philharmonic defeat.

‘Titanique’

All aboard the SS “Titanique,” a Broadway pleasance cruise traveling done immoderate notoriously icy waterways.

Celine Dion (Marla Mindelle) assumes the relation of circuit usher successful this campy send-up of the movie “Titanic,” but don’t beryllium alarmed that her main qualification is the opus “My Heart Will Go On.” The number, shamelessly teased, does so service arsenic her passport.

But arsenic Celine fulsomely explains successful her charmingly heavy Québécois accent, she was really a rider connected the Titanic. Don’t interest astir the math! She knows what — oregon should I accidental who? — truly went down connected that disastrous maiden voyage.

A long-running deed off-Broadway, “Titanique” has been upgraded for Broadway transition astatine the St. James Theatre. Jim Parsons, who plays hard-up maternal panic Ruth DeWitt Bukater successful matronly resistance topped disconnected with a bird-themed hairsbreadth ornament, and R&B prima Deborah Cox, who takes connected the relation of Molly Brown that Kathy Bates made her own, adhd immoderate uptown pizzazz to the cast.

Deborah Cox arsenic Unsinkable Molly Brown successful "Titanique."

Celine Dion is lovingly lampooned successful each her sentimental goofiness, on with the fervid crippled of James Cameron’s blockbuster. The skewering, acceptable to a enactment of philharmonic hits borrowed from Dion’s backmost catalog and idiosyncratic playlist, is arsenic bawdy arsenic it is zany.

The musical, brimming implicit with Broadway in-jokes and phallic humor, doesn’t physique truthful overmuch arsenic whip itself into a frenzy. The organizing rule of the people eluded me, but the publication by Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue (who gamely directs each this horseplay) follows the romanticist shenanigans of Rose DeWitt Bukater (Melissa Barrera) and Jack Dawson (Rousouli), the musical’s knockabout mentation of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, whose emotion matter is driving Cal Hockley (John Riddle), Rose’s affluent fiancé, into a jealous tizzy, astatine slightest erstwhile his Grindr app isn’t blowing up.

I was acceptable to leap vessel agelong earlier the emergence of the deadly iceberg (incarnated by Layton Williams successful the signifier of an arsenic formidable unit of nature, Tina Turner). But theatergoers astir maine couldn’t look to get enough, nary substance however repetitive the naughty wit became. Broadway is simply a pricey spot for this benignant of burlesque, but the request for comic alleviation these days is palpable. And this bawdy crowd-pleaser astatine slightest has the courageousness of its crackpot convictions.

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