Well known for their television and live performances, both in Australia and internationally, The Kransky Sisters gave their usual polished, amusing and distinctive show at the Athenaeum Theatre for this year’s Comedy Festival. To a jaunty, suitably dated version of Dinah, the 1920s hit song, Heard It On The Wireless begins with an eccentric home movie of the motels and food encountered on their travels, then introduces the three lugubrious Gothic siblings, Mourne, Eve and Dawn Kransky, dressed in their now-famous long pleated skirts, dotted white blouses and Addams family black wigs. The Kransky family dynamics are grim and complex. Mourne, the trio’s despot, endlessly tries to impose her fierce virginity on her hapless sisters, while painting a creepy, surreal picture of the otherwise harmless town of Esk, west of Brisbane. The second sister, Eve, has the unfortunate and revealing habit of repeating the last few words of Mourne’s tirades, thus settling her status as victim and lifelong echo. Her feeble and ambivalent approach to a (gasp!) male (Peter, an amiable audience member brought on stage later in the show, and dressed like a Kransky, black wig and all), is instantly crushed by the tyrannical Mourne. Dawn, who plays the tuba with disarming brilliance, seems to have wisely taken up residence in her own pleasant parallel universe, from which she watches the world and her siblings with amused detachment.
Highlights of the Kranskys’ shows are their decorous, oddball arrangements of songs like Highway to Hell, Run Run Runaway, Ring of Fire, The Real Thing and Born to be Wild, seemingly gleaned from a country radio station playlist of 1981, sung with Julie Andrews diction and performed with frantic choreography. The determinedly dated quality of the Kransky universe was also brought out nicely when Mourne plaintively asked, “But Peter what is a database?"
Dawn’s tuba solos are a standout, especially her wild yelling in Sweet Dreams are Made of This, and nice voice generally (though I guess that tuba tends to take over), and Eve’s saw solos are are in a league of their own. (The duelling tambourines should also be watched for). In between Mourne, a nice little singer, player and mover herself, morbidly relates strange, disoriented stories of a dog meeting a concrete mixer, the sisters being punished with a cheese grater on their legs, or a rabbit coming off second best with a lawn mower. Chilling references are also made to powerful, unseen presences, through dialogue like this: (pause, then in a low, menacing tone): Mother was not happy… or (pause) the two brothers never spoke again…
At just over an hour, Heard It On The Wireless is a little on the short side, but it is certainly a good breezy introduction to the Kranskys’ take on life. By the way I once went to Esk (on the way to somewhere else, naturally), and there was no sign, outwardly at least, of the grotesque occurrences chronicled by the weird sisters. But I suppose it was all going on behind closed doors…
A-List Entertainment
Heard It On The Wireless
The Kransky Sisters
Venue: Athenaeum Theatre | 188 Collins St, Melbourne
Dates: 22nd Mar - 23rd Mar
Times: Sat 7pm, Sun 6pm
Duration: 60 minutes
Tickets: Full $34.90, Conc $29.90, Group (10 or more) $29.90
Bookings: Ticketmaster 1300 660 013 | 9650 1500 & at the door