This Dame Really Has It

What do you go for? Go see a show for? The old Harry Warren-Al Dubin song “Dames” says it’s dames, plural. But Dame Edna Everage--Australia’s unofficial first lady, a goodwill ambassador and wonderfully cheery insult comedian--is another, singular matter entirely.

She’s the dame in “Dame Edna: The Royal Tour,” now at the Shubert Theatre. And she is hilarious.

The Melbourne export, a spectacularly glamorous middle-class peacock with plumed eyeglasses, came along in 1955, the creation of actor Barry Humphries. There is no good reason a man in a dress--even when it’s an extremely clever and resourceful actor in some blinding frocks--should remain a marvel nearly a half a century later. She does.

Humphries’ self-proclaimed “mega-star,” the embodiment of healthy show-biz ego with a smile, turns “the little tucked-away” Shubert Theatre (pronounced “Shoooooobert”) into her own kind of tea party. That is, a tea party that’s like a talk show, a variety show and a politely ruthless interrogation of various members of the audience.

A video introduction shows Dame Edna’s “rise and rise,” being chatted up by David Frost in the early ‘60s, then doing the chatting-up herself with Sean Connery, Mel Gibson and others. (This part’s fun though not strictly necessary.)

Then, Edna cometh, resplendent in pink and black and diamonds, addressing her dear, dear theatergoers as “possums.” She has love for all, though of course she has her standards. The “paupers” sitting in the balcony, her “paupies,” also go by the term “les miserables,” or “mizzies.”

The uninitiated possums learn bits about this star’s life: her late husband, whose death led to a grieving process of up to 20 minutes; her son Kenny, variously employed as a window dresser and an airline steward, paid tribute in the song “Any Friend of Kenny’s Is a Friend of Mine”; her estranged daughter, living in an “immobile home” in Barstow (at least, it’s Barstow during the L.A. engagement) with her significant other and their 12 pit bulls.

But as she’ll tell you, the show isn’t about her, it’s about you, wonderful you. Much of “Dame Edna” is made up of audience interaction, which ordinarily strikes me as lazy and/or easy. In Humphries’ hands, it’s the stuff of comic genius. Edna inquires after various people’s baby-sitting arrangements. What’s the sitter’s name? Michelle? What do you pay her?

The questions persist: Where do you live? Orange, someone says. “Some lovely homes out that way in Orange. . . . Do you live near any of them?” Edna wonders.

And the walls in the house would be . . . “beige?! I’d forgotten about beige!”

You read about what transpires in “Dame Edna,” and you can’t glean much regarding why it’s as uproarious as it is. Humphries, nearing 70 and looking faaaaaaabulous, has timing to die for, if it doesn’t kill you first. And his creation never wears out her welcome, even as she’s dissing the entire continent with a nonverbal reaction to whomever she’s talking to. (Humphries’ mouth, which plummets in horror at the corners depending on whom she’s getting to know, deserves separate billing.)

*

On opening night at the tucked-away Shubert, certain bits stalled a bit. At one point, Edna makes phone calls to aforementioned baby-sitters and the like, and the show biz gods were working against her Wednesday. “Dame Edna” ran closer to 2 hours and 15 minutes on Broadway, typically, and when it tops the 2 1/2-hour mark, it’s not for the better.

Small matter, though. With Wayne Barker at the piano, backed by scenic designer Kenneth Foy’s setting (done up in Early Liberace), Humphries receives lovely and talented support from the “Ednaettes,” Teri Digianfelice and Michelle Pampena. They’re pure 1967 TV variety hour.

Humphries proudly positions Ms. Everage, whom no one, no one, would ever mistake for being average, as a bastion of political incorrectness. She’s as deft at skewering the peculiar popularity of arugula and balsamic vinegar (worth hearing simply for the elongated vowel sounds in aroooogula) as she is at offering her two cents on illegal immigration.

It’s wonderful, isn’t it? she notes. In a democracy like America’s, “you can have a slave class with a clear conscience.” There’s some bite in this show, but mostly--and buoyantly--Edna’s all bark, a splendid over-bred pink poodle of an entertainer unlike any other. Having “Dame Edna” in town at the same time Lypsinka’s over at the Tiffany, doing his/her thing, is almost too much fabulousness for one state to bear.

* “Dame Edna: The Royal Tour,” Shubert Theatre, 2020 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m.; Thursdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m.L. Ends May 27. $30 to $60. (800) 447-7400 or www.telecharge.com. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Barry Humphries: Dame Edna Everage

Wayne Barker: The Fingers on the Keyboards

Teri Digianfelice: The Gorgeous Ednaette #1

Michelle Pampena: An Equally Gorgeous Ednaette #2

Written by Barry Humphries. 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. Production stage manager James W. Gibbs.