"This is a Public Health Warning"
November 22, 2004
NEW YORK: There may not be a more giddy, joyous sight on Broadway all season.
Scores of theatregoers, each merrily waving a gladiolus, smile as a living legend (of sorts) with purple hair and oversized rhinestone eyeglasses urges them to sing along.
"When you're feeling so downhearted, you can barely move or talk. Just wave that glad, wave that glad and grab life by the stalk," goes her saucy ditty, and it could be the core philosophy of the cheerful creature on stage.
Yes, Dame Edna Everage is back on Broadway "With a Vengeance", if you can believe the title of her hilarious new show, which opened on November 21 at the Music Box Theatre.
We shall speak of Dame Edna as a lady, even though she is the alter ego of impersonator Barry Humphries, a master of outrageousness. Humphries created this ever-enthusiastic woman who, according to her bio, was a simple Australian housewife who yearned for something more – stardom.
Well, Dame Edna, who has had an extensive career in Australia and Great Britain, has found it. Her initial Broadway gig in 1999 (Dame Edna: The Royal Tour) was a Tony-winning smash and there's no reason to expect her return engagement will be any less successful.
Fans of the first show will know the game plan, although now the lady has expanded the entertainment's production values. She's added two chorus boys (the Equally Gorgeous TestEdnarones) to her lineup of two chorus girls (the Gorgeous Ednaettes), as well as a bit more scenery, including a retro take on the New York skyline.
Dame Edna does standup comedy in a homey, personal way – she chats. Even when her talk gets a bit political (a sly mention of the current president and his discomfort with geography, for example), it sounds as if she is having a one-on-one conversation with the audience.
Yet her banter is seasoned with more than a touch of show-biz spice, as well as disparaging references to her children, including her dress-designing, San Francisco-based son, Kenny, "a practicing homeopath".
Dame Edna is no slouch when it comes to improvising, either. In fact, that's where the show excels – in the performer's brilliant interaction with theatregoers, particularly those vulnerable folks who sit in the first few rows.
She makes a point of learning their first names, what they do for a living, where they live and a personal detail or two, such as the colour of their bathroom. Those facts keep popping up throughout the evening as she showers left-handed compliments – or worse – on all of them.
At one point, Edna brings a twosome on stage for couple's counseling. The questions immediately get intimate – and very funny. And, as in her previous show, a telephone is never far out of reach. She ends up calling one of the couple's surprised relatives.
Act 2 also brings a sketch in which Dame Edna pulls audience members on stage to portray members of her dysfunctional family, including Kenny. If it goes on a bit too long, no matter. The crowd, both on and offstage, loves it.
A special mention should be made of costume designers Will Goodwin and Stephen Adnitt, who created outlandish costumes for Dame Edna, including one that appears to be the colour of rainbow sherbet.
Wayne Barker provides the extensive musical accompaniment, from a disco-style title song to that wonderful number about gladioli, which are the Dame's signature flowers.
She and other cast members toss them into the audience at the end of the evening, right before that exuberant song fest. It sends theatregoers out on the happiest of high notes.
AP
