Review: Dame Edna delights at the Phil

Dame Edna Everage

Dame Edna sparkles and glitters and titters and shines. The first impressions of the Broadway star and tart-tongued comic resemble nothing so much as a mirrorball exploding across the auditorium as the addled Aussie makes her entrance onto the Philharmonic stage. The show — a witty wonderland of gab weighed down by a few inauspicious detours — starts with guffaws, ends with flower-waving cheers and leaves the crowd wanting ever more.

The lilac-haired creation that is Dame Edna Everage comes from the brilliantly twisted mind of Australian comedian Barry Humphries, who has been performing as the character since the 1950s and 60s. Dame Edna has appeared on television all over the world, including a role in “Ally McBeal;” Humphries won a Tony in 1980 for the Broadway presentation of “Dame Edna: The Royal Tour.”

The presentation, for lack of a better name to call it, draws a dozen laughs before the star ever appears. The “don’t record this show” announcement is rib-ticklingly funny, as is a sequence disguised as a TV exposé of Dame Edna. Once the star finally emerges — busted videotape waving madly in her hand — the audience has already been chuckled into a state of mild stupor.

The Philharmonic audience, while not quite at capacity, proves receptive to the Aussie-flavored agitprop being delivered — especially as it seems the Dame has tamed her show to appeal to the masses. Jokes don’t stray too far into the realm of the naughty, the humor is a steady diet of silliness, digs at bad fashion, senior citizens, parenting, more bad fashion and deliberate exaggeration of Dame Edna’s globe-trotting exploits helping the world’s top actors, politicians and superstars. Dame Edna, by the way, is a gigastar — an order of magnitude better than a megastar.

Le grande dame proffers up her kindly ministrations as a sort of talk show — one where she talks and the audience listens. The result is a singular, satirical force of nature, with the lilac lady delivering zingers, wry observations and screechingly bad songs for 90 minutes.

Topical humor gets a nod — Barack Obama is name-dropped, as is George Bush. Pop star Madonna’s recent baby-shopping exploits in Malawi are mentioned, with Dame Edna struggling to remember the country she acquired her newest infant before settling on Chlamydia. That one joke, as well as references to a departed husband who died of a severely enlarged “prostrate” mark the evening’s closest brushes with the risqué.

One of Friday evening’s biggest hits featured Dame Edna throwing what seemed like an acre of her trademark gladioli into the crowd — even managing to land branches in the Phil’s box seats and encouraging one eager patron to “Lean out further” as he tried repeatedly to catch a flower. It was funny and it was lively but it wasn’t exactly star-making theater.

An audience participation segment — with Dame Edna grilling patrons about their life, work, abodes and perceived fashion mistakes is endearing funny but seems to go on too long. Worse, audience members are later brought up on stage to perpetuate the myth that Dame Edna is taping a pilot for a new TV show. I suppose it is a sort of fun for the participants — they get a Polaroid taken with the star and a chance to match wits with the old bird — but often devoid of fun for the audience.

The laughter was noticeably absent during on-stage parts of the audience participation segments, as well as sequences where Dame Edna’s mischievous daughter Valmai (Erin-Kate Whitcomb) stalked the stage. Truthfully, the production seemed to be have progressively less energy as the night wore on. The mix of comedy, sarcasm, satire and wit combined with audience interaction has a particular shelf life — and 90 minutes is likely at the extreme end of that life span — no matter the fact that Humphries is an absolute genius at thinking on his feet and drawing laughs from the most mundane lines fed him from a placid audience.

Mostly, Dame Edna proves to be an “experience” — a vision lacquered in lilac and wearing cats eye glasses with a sharp tongue and nimble wit. The show isn’t quite as bawdy as it may seem, especially coming from a man wearing a sequined dress and purple wig, but it remains an amusing divertissement.

Flowers and feathers and fashion, oh my! What did you think of Dame Edna? Email me at csilk@naplesnews.com.

© 2009 gonaples.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.