After a successful run at last years festival, Kristilee Ransley and Craig Wellington have once again joined forces for a reprisal of Ramblings. The show tells the tale of Kristilee’s adventures working as a piano bar pianist at various places around the world from an Aussie Pub in Dresden to a swank bar in Casablanca, on a cruise ship traveling between Finland and Norway, a brief break in Ireland and back to Dresden.
Many strange and eccentric characters are encountered by Kristilee during the tale, all brilliantly portrayed by Craig. He didn’t need elaborate costuming to inhabit these people, instead he relied on mime, expressive facial expressions and a wide range of accents. Craig brought to life characters such as bar owners, lecherous men, stereotypical barflys and her only fan in Dresden, the wonderfully camp Arnold. A majority of these larger than life personalities were staged as brief monologues to illustrate Kristilee’s description of them, while some were allowed to interact with her in the recounting of the story. These exchanges gave Craig the opportunity to throw himself physically into the role, chasing Kristilee around the stage, getting in her face and generally mincing about. Every one of his characters had the audience in hysterics.
Kristilee essentially played the straight role by telling the tale, belting out a number of tunes and interacting with the characters. There was nothing humorous in the actual songs, but her comments about the repetition of these songs in her line of work kept the laughs coming. Her brilliant voice ensured that the audience were completely entranced during the few serious moments of the show.
The staging of the show was efficiently sparse with only a single prop featured (used for a single recurring joke), a screen, a keyboard and a chair. The screen may seem redundant due to the lack of costume changes but Craig was able to duck off stage, keeping the focus on Kristilee when he was out of character. This bare bones approach allowed the story to take centre stage and eliminated any distractions to the well written script.
Ramblings was a wonderful piece of theatre that kept the punters laughing and thoroughly entertained. The teaming of Kristilee as the world weary songstress and Craig as many over the top gents was the perfect pairing. Their odd mid show giggle and sly nod to each other had them working in wonderful unison, obviously enjoying the performance as much as we did.
‘Ramblings’ is performed on Saturday and Sunday until April 28. See the “Comedy at Trades”:https://www.comedyattrades.com.au/program_guide/show_95/ for further details.