Dame Edna: The Royal Tour

Janet Reno wants me to do a makeover. She wants me to bring out her hidden femininity, says Dame Edna candidly and with a sincerity that could serve as a lesson in misplaced diplomacy. Notwithstanding this endearingly egotistical superstar's illusions of being a renowned "beauty consultant, investigative journalist, chanteuse, swami, adviser to British royalty, grief counselor, spin-doctor and icon," Dame Edna is to be seriously considered as a force for the millennium. How fulfilling it must feel to know you have become one of the growing numbers of the rich, the famous but mostly less illustrious persons who have served as foils for Dame Edna's now almost legendary brand of mischievous mockery.

Her self-satisfied pronouncements and denouncements in regard to those individual close-to-home targets, in particular, and her observations on society and propriety, in general, leave no doubt that she is an informed social anthropologist and confirmed moralist of the first order. You'll notice, however, how important politicos and glamorous showbiz celebrities play second fiddle to the more agreeably and easily-victimized patrons in the theater. Wearing a different outre, sequin-studded outfit for each act, her mauve wig teased into a formidable steel helmet, Dame Edna could easily pass for Margaret Thatcher auditioning for a role in "Absolutely Fabulous."

To be sure, the majority of the audience that roared with laughter almost continuously at the self-important "Dame" from Australia would have given anything to be singled out for ridicule. Singled out but not present, for the purpose of sharing her own troubles, are Dame Edna's mother and grown children. Brief histories of the window dresser-cum-dress designer son who lives in Chelsea and has "so many friends," the daughter who lives in Flatbush with a retired Czech tennis pro of the same sex, and her mother who "lives in a maximum security twilight home" are funnily considered through rose-colored glasses. Taking account of Dame Edna is actor and artist Barry Humphries, who can say that he has been more than merely receptive to his seductively garish creation for about forty years. In fact, she possesses him.

Under Humphries' unsurprisingly indulgent direction, Dame Edna uses her chatty rapport with various audience members to propel what is basically a rather old-fashioned vaudeville act. It says something about our culture that we all seem to take great pleasure in watching pretentiousness paraded and innocence skewered on and off a glittering Ziegfeldian staircase. Dame Edna's ability to keep a cross current of conversations going is cause enough for hilarity, but that she remembers the scores of first names as she soliloquizes is amazing, indeed.

Dame Edna is assisted by two leggy chorines called the "the gorgeous" Ednaettes (Roxane Barlow and Tamlyn Brooke Shusterman) and a pianist (Andrew Ross). On those occasions when Dame Edna's "hands-on-magic for yourself and for your wives, children, significant others and same sex partners," isn't making you howl or crawl under your seat, she has a few musical numbers to keep things lively.

And what about the Dame's dancing and singing? Well, if you've ever been in an underground bomb shelter during the blitz when someone in the crowd decided to help keep spirits up, then you have it. But, you can't escape it either, especially when Dame Edna hands out hundreds of gladioli and rehearses her"possums" (her endearing term for the audience) for a breathtaking, and just slightly lewd, sing-a-long, stand-up finale. I have to admit there is nothing quite like this down-under Dame.