BWW Reviews: DAME EDNA's Glorious Return
By: Don Grigware Jan. 30, 2015
Dame Edna's Glorious Goodbye, The Farewell Tour/crafted by Dr. Barry Humphries/additional material by Andrew Ross/directed by Simon Phillips/Ahmanson Theatre/limited engagement through March 15
The Ahmanson Theatre welcomes back Dame Edna for the third time with Dame Edna's Glorious Goodbye The Farewell Tour. Things will never be quite the same thanks to Barry Humphries. He's Edna's manager and has exploited the lady's mind, body and spirit so much through the years that they are practically joined at the hip. Humphries makes an appearance at the end of the show, so with both personalities onstage, it's well worth your time to drop in for a visit. Edna spreads her good will abundantly and American audiences adore her, at least the majority, who also just happen to share a fondness for her son Kenny.
The show as usual begins with a delightful film tracing the lady's career over 50 years from her early days in Australia to becoming the Giga International star that she is...there are tidbits about her husband Norm & about his death due to a prostate 'that loomed over Edna's head' far too long... glimpses of her bridesmaid Madge Allsop, the tiny deadpan frump who almost became as celebrated a personality as the Dame herself... infamous gossip about Edna's escapades while joining the international swing set and her 'brief encounter' with Osama Bin Laden ...the list goes on.
When Edna comes onstage, she calls the film's content nothing but slanderous gossip and lies. Edna's charm comes from her scathing quick wit and ad libs. When she greets her court, she does not 'pick on them' so much as 'empower' them. That's what she claims anyway! Whatever, it's one big happy love fest with a myriad of sarcastic jokes about the upper and middle classes, gays, referred to lovingly as 'friends of Kenny', who, FYI, is a successful Hollywood fashion designer. In fact, he designed the Dame's colorfully gaudy pink and powder blue frocks.
There are jibes about Angelenos and their casual appearance and lifestyle and, of course, multiple assaults on seniors, who can't remember anything. In a very funny segment in Act II Edna proposes that a family send a senior on a vacation without paying a cent. It involves a sunlamp, some sand and a batch of photos. "When he's asleep, put him under the sunlamp and put sand in his crevices and the photos in his hands. When he wakes up, tell him he's been away; he'll never remember and you'll save a fortune."
The play's a deliciously mindless gabfest where Edna picks people from the audience with whom to converse - and lovingly assault - and then later brings a couple up onstage. On opening night she performed a wedding with two very unsuspecting and unlikely partners and even called the woman's son in LA to tell him his mother had a new husband. Funny stuff! There was also a terrific monologue about visiting an ashram for six months with Edna claiming to be on a spiritual journey, divesting herself of material possessions. She gives away a diamond bracelet but later begs to get it back.
The finale is a dispensing of the traditional gladiolas, Edna's emblem of peace and love, with the Gladdie song.
There are three musical numbers to which Edna gleefully lends her quaking alto. Musical director Jonathan Tessero lends fine support as do dancers Ralph Coppola, Brooke Pascoe, Armando Yearwood and Eve Prideaux, deliciously choreographed by Prideaux. Two of the songs, the opener "Me Time" and "You Will Have to Do Without Me Somehow" were written by Wayne Barker. Director Simon Phillips? Well, according to a program note, he's also Australian, but according to Edna, he's name only, adding "nothing to the mix". More lies? Who can tell?!
Regardless of what she says or does,audiences eat up every word of it, and if this turns out to be , in fact, Dame Edna's last tour, who could possibly replace this sparkling wit? That's right, Dame Edna is most assuredly an international treasure. Well, a world class phenomenon, at any rate! Don't miss her during her brief stay through March 15!
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