The cat performance

This is it... I did it...I performed as a cat in Spanish!

As part of the celebrations of Day of the Child at Miriam's school, a group of mothers (and one father) performed a play about a cat and some mice, and I was the cat. I learnt all my lines in Spanish (and it was not just miow!), but was not looking forward to wearing a huge foam and fur mascot costume (complete with enormous foam head, gloves and foam feet) in 35+ degrees.

And just to make things even more difficult, the head only had a tiny opening for the cats mouth for me to see, hear and speak through. This meant, I couldn't see very much, I could barely hear the other dialogue, and for anyone to hear me, I had to shout. But wait there's more: the mice actors were in the room - their mouse house - with the audience, but the cat stays outside. So the difficulties that I faced were trying to work out where the other actors were up to without being able to see or hear them properly, trying to manouver my enormous cat body in a small space to look into the mouse house, and delivering lines in Spanish, correctly pronounced at shouting volume, all while sweating copiously and smelling everybodies sweat who'd worn the costume before me!

However, moments before the opening curtain, someone had the brilliant idea that I could act, but somebody else could say my lines so that they could be heard! I breathed a sigh of relief (amidst the stink of the cat head) and the show went on.

The kids loved it, the cat was their favorite, the teachers and parents were very sympathetic with my sweaty state, and full of admiration of my performance and that I got involved when it was so difficult, and I had a great time. I'd forgotten how much I love to perform, and it was fun to be involved and work with the other mums.





Sarah