Fanciful and Fabulous: ‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’ on Broadway

De Shields, now 80, first appeared on Broadway in 1973; only a couple of years later he was the Wiz in “The Wiz.” (He’s such a titan that when he takes a step, the sound designer Kai Harada plays thundering booms that make the theater shake.) De Shields speaks and sings in the high, twanging voice of total command, cutting through other sounds like a hunting horn. He summons the Jellicles into a unit, a tribe, a force. In his performance, we also see how ballroom vocabulary lends itself to any kind of grace — De Shields, who is often tenderly assisted by another performer when he’s on the stairs, dances entire, transfixing numbers just by flourishing his rings.