Theater: “Cats Jellicle Ball” @ Perelman Arts Center

In 1972, Harlem drag queens Lottie and Crystal LaBeija founded the House of LaBeija, and drag balls evolved into “house ballroom.” In the ballroom scene, Black and Latino drag performers achieve glory, and find surrogate families, headed up by “house mothers” and “house fathers.”

I first learned about this phenomenon in Jenny Livingston’s 1990 documentary, “Paris is Burning,” which starred drag queens with names like “Angie Extravaganza.” More recently, the Netflix series “Pose” focused on ballroom and won Billy Porter a Daytime Emmy.

What all this has to do with “Cats,” the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical equally loved and abhorred, may boggle the mind at first. But respectfully, I say boggle away. For “Cats Jellicle Ball” at PAC this summer is pretty damned spectacular.

The structure of “Jellicle” may be familiar to those who’ve seen “Pose.” The various “cats” (a term synonymous with queer people in this production) parade up and down a runway and perform for the leonine Old Deuteronomy (Andre DeShields) who acts as a house mother/father handing out the prizes in specific categories (e.g., “European” “American cowboy”).

The costumes are nine lives away from little cat ears or Halloween outfits. Exotic gowns with women sporting cleavages not seen since the days of Jane Russell are the norm, along with Vegas-ready headdresses and wigs, and spinning disco balls circa 1980. (Kudos to Zinda Williams, head of wardrobe; Rainy Zohn; hair, wig and makeup lead; and lighting and musical directors by the dozens.)

The cast is appropriate for a drag ball; there’s a glorious assortment of shapes, sizes, genders and colors. Besides DeShields, dignified yet ever spry at age 78, I liked Sydney James Harcourt (who played Aaron Burr in “Hamilton”) as the ripped, smooth-voiced Tugger, the curious cat; “Silk” Mason, the long-limbed double-jointed Mr. Mistoffeles; and trans actor “Temptress” Chasity Moore as Grisabella who delivers a moving rendition of “Memories.”

The reinterpretations of Webber’s somewhat saccharine numbers are sharp and New York-funny. Skimbleshanks (Emma Sofia), the railway cat, is dressed as a NYC subway motorman; while Bustephor Jones (Nora Schell), the cat about town, wears a tuxedo and top hat. The acrobatic choreography is by Baby, and if you find yourself thinking this is entirely too sexy you are not alone.

Please be advised: while “Jellicle Ball” does represent a radical restaging of Cats, the score has not changed, which means you may find yourself alternately singing along with the Cat-friendly audience and internally wincing from time to time. If you are among the latter, you may eventually become tired of trying to hate it…and just surrender.

Note: one of the funniest lines about “Cats” comes from John Guare’s 1990 play “Six Degrees of Separation,” where one of the characters says that the musical represented a “new low in a lifetime of theatergoing.” It takes a production as bold and unapologetic as this one to make me change my mind. Happy Summer.

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