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Dame Edna The Royal Tour |
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Author: Barry Humphries
Reviewer: Carolyn Albert for Theatre Reviews Limited |
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Hurry over to the Booth Theatre where Dame Edna Everage holds royal court with the audience - which is to say, she holds the audience in the palms of her manicured hands as she interviews members of the audience who catch her eye or respond affirmatively to certain questions. That's what the show is about - which makes it unique and quite unpredictable and very, very funny.
  
While some playwrights have difficulty creating characters we can care about, here at the Booth, we feel instant rapport with anyone who is the recipient of Dame Edna's attention. We feel his or her embarrassment and also feel damn glad we're not him/her. Yet, Dame Edna does no harm. She's quite gentle, actually, even when telling a slightly-overweight matron, "You're practically wasting away," or commenting on the informal attire of another with "I've tried making my own clothing too, dear - and like you, I failed."
Dame Edna is a phenomenon. Who is she and where did she come from? According to press material and many articles written about her, she is the alter-persona of Australian comedian Barry Humphries, who first put on the garb of a middle-aged Melbourne housewife way back in 1956, becoming Edna Everage. Even before the so-called sexual revolution took much of the stigma out of cross-dressing, it was funny to hear a man dressed as a woman prattling on about the color scheme of one's bedroom or which celebrity is doing what and where with whom. Over the years, Edna has evolved, now becoming a royal Dame on her grand tour.
Arriving in New York after a successful run in San Francisco, Edna has studied the local scene, knowing all about our Mayor's latest headaches and conflicts. Of course she has her opinions on just about everything and lets the zingers fall abundantly. Some of her lines are snapped up by journalists and readily paraphrased, like her cheerful thankfulness for illegal immigrants in America. After all, who else would wash the dishes in restaurants, she notes, saying, "One of the advantages of a democracy is that you can have a slave class with a clear conscience."
Appearing in gaudy variations of shocking pink with silver lamé, feathers, rhinestones, and every tacky accessory one could imagine, she opens with an explanatory song about her abusive mother who insisted, "Look at me when I'm talking to you." That's precisely what Edna bullies her audience into doing and has no pity on the waif who, as intermission approaches, glances down at her program to see if there is an opportunity for her to use the loo, apologizing with "Please excuse me, Dear, for interrupting your program reading with my show."
Her style of great sympathetic caring allows her to probe as she asks where people are from, and how they arrived at the theater. Those who come from New Jersey, the bus and tunnel crowd, receive special pity, as do the impoverished masses who must sit in the mezzanine, or as she dubs them, Les Mizzies in Le Mezzy. For example, as she interviewed a woman who sat further back in the orchestra, her eyes turned quickly up to the people above as she warned, "Don't lean forward! Don't risk your lives to look at this woman!"
Dame Edna shares her personal tragedies (Her husband, Norm, passed on ten years earlier) and tendernesses. Showing off her post-intermission outfit, a rose velvet gown with sequins that shows off her very good legs, she boasts that her son, Kenny, designed it for her. A delightful segment of the show is devoted to Pflag ideals, as she sings how "Any friend of Kenny's is a friend of mine." These amusing songs that open and close each act have piano accompaniment (Phil Reno substituted for the energetic Mark Nadler - an irrepressible performer regularly at Sardi's) and vocal back-up by the Ednaettes, two leggy females.
Her pianist also takes Polaroid photos of Edna with her targets who receive small gifts when they appear onstage in a special royal command performance. At her imperial request, she manages to get a couple to eat lunch on stage in full view of the audience, and has another reveal the phone number of someone at home - whom Edna calls for a nice chat. One segment we found particularly hilarious concerned her views of the spending of money on vacation cruises taken by seniors who remember nothing about them - which she proves by asking questions of audience seniors who've gone on cruises and don't remember where.
A visit to Dame Edna is a sure cure for wintertime blues or flues. Her timing with lines is extraordinary. Be sure to read the program carefully for those extra little amusing notes and surprises tucked here and there. After all, where else can you read the full biography of both the star and her creator, Barry Humphries, an accomplished and awarded character actor and landscape artist.
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Produced by Leonard Soloway, Chase Mishkin, Steven M. Levy, and Jonathan Reinis. Written and devised by Barry Humphries with additional material by Ian Davidson. Scenic Design by Kenneth Foy. Costume Design by Stephen Adnitt. Lighting Design by Jason Kantrowitz. Sound Design by Peter Fitzgerald.
CAST: Dame Edna Everage (Barry Humphries). Phil Reno substituting at this performance for Mark Nadler on keyboards. Amy Heggins understudied for either Roxane Barlow or Tamlyn Brooke Shusterman (Ednaettes.)
Theater: Booth Theatre, 222 West 45th Street
Schedule: Tuesday to Saturday at 8, Wednesday and Saturday at 2, Sunday at 3.
Tickets: $45-60 at box office, or by calling 212/239-6200.
Audience: Sophisticated teen to adult. Suggestive references made.
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