Master Cat – Oklahoma Christian
November 17th, 2018 @ 7pm
I decided to go see Oklahoma Christian’s theater production of Master Cat. There were many kids and families there: a very good turn out. The story is supposedly the background story for Puss and boots from modern musical and movie: Shrek.
The story describes a man who leaves three gifts for his sons; they each are to receive one. The oldest receives a mill, the middle receives a mule, and to the third sons dismay, he receives a cat. The main character is the cat who is given to the third son. The third son thought he got the worst gift: “Who needs a cat?”. But the cat proves her worth through her cunning and wit. She brings her master money for bringing “pets” (mice and rabbits) to the king and earns his favor. By the end of the show, her master has become very wealthy, with a princess as a wife, an ogre’s castle that is now his, and his cunning cat… What more could you need?
This was a very cute performance written purposely for children. It was full of puns and silly things happening… especially focusing on things that children would think were funny. The one thing I would change would be the quality of the vocals. There were several songs with vocals were severely lacking both in tone and in consistency. At one point the singers were so off on the track, that it was almost hard to listen to. In addition there was very little confidence singing, those who may have been singing correctly were not loud enough to be heard. I think that they could’ve put a little more diligence and attention toward this aspect of the play.
This was a very minimalistic staged set. There was not much change in the background, no drops, and very very little set movement. The one thing that really changed were the people changing characters. The leads never changed but the background characters would change 2-6 times per show. Each change was on time and fully accomplished leaving the sense that there were many more actors than there actually were.
The costumes were extremely well done. Each characters costume was clear (especially for the animals) and they each showed personality and thought. I especially loved the costume design for the cat. Simple and yet very cat like.
I loved how the characters adopted stereotypes that are often associated with the animal or position. For example, the king was over the top scared of going outside his castle. The mice were blind and dumb, getting trapped easily by the cat. While the Ogre was a mean, distasteful creature, eating all of his/her servants.
The lights were particularly interesting to me. I noticed that the lights were very crucial in determining the settings, especially since were very few set pieces and props. They changed colors when they entered the ogres castles, were brighter when they were outside in the Apple orchard, and were very even toned in the kings castle. I noticed that the lighting created very smooth transitions that made it easier to follow the story from an audience perspective.
This show isn’t perfect vocally, but overall was a very sweet production put on by OC students. I’m proud of the hard work they put in, and how much they committed to this show. It was very enjoyable to watch my peers put on expressive characters and exhibit great acting ability.
