There is nothin' like a Dame

HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO know about Dame Edna:

COURTESY PHOTO

She's sly. She's highly intelligent.

She probably plays a mean game of chess, because in conversation, she's always at least three or four moves ahead of you. 

And she's very, very funny.

During a previous Florida tour, she promised a laugh a minute, or your money back.

As far as I know, no one asked for a refund.

In what's touted as her "First Last Tour," Dame Edna is playing three shows at the Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples (8 p.m. April 10 and 2 and 8 p.m. April 11).

When she played the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall in 2004, she sang, she danced, she did marriage counseling with a couple plucked from the audience. She commented on our lack of fashion sense: "I thought seersucker was dead and gone until I came to Florida." She also puzzled over our large senior citizen population: "It's a contradiction. If you want to preserve something, you put it in the freezer, not in the oven."

And some of her comments were quite adult: "I bankrolled Bill Gates. (pause) I don't know anything about computers. It was the word 'Microsoft.' It reminded me of my husband."

She's over-the-top, larger-than-life, with outfits Liberace would've envied.

The power of the press

Even her press release is extravagant, though she'd probably say she's simply telling the truth: "She will display her unique genius with a new and vibrantly stimulating theatrical infrastructure (to use her own vivid phrase), addressing an exciting range of cutting-edge comedy solutions," it boasts. And it provides this quote from the Dame: "I don't do shows, Possums, I make History! In a spooky way, I am theater in the making. My shows are really not shows at all, they are not Events; they are MIRACLES which you can proudly tell your grandchildren you witnessed."

The release refers to her as an "international housewife, therapist, gigastar" — a gigastar, not a mere megastar, mind you — as well as a "fashion icon, guru and swami."

Seeing Dame Edna in action onstage is definitely an experience.

Talking to her on the phone is equally as entertaining. Yes, she's perky and upbeat. She speaks as if the two of you are confidantes, as if she's your favorite auntie, sitting right next to you, sharing tea, gossip and her favorite naughty story or off-color joke.

Unbeknownst to her interviewers, she contacts the venue — or the interviewer's employer — ahead of time and asks personal questions: Any pets? Their names? Favorite restaurant? Any hobbies? Last vacation spot visited? She then weaves that information into the conversation —which is a jarring experience.

Did she run away with the interview? Yes, she did. Did I care? Not a bit. Here's an edited version of our talk:

Dame Edna: Good morning, Nancy!

Nancy: Good morning, Dame Edna. It's so wonderful to talk with you again.

Dame Edna: It's lovely to talk to you. I mean, Arts Journalist of the Year is something, isn't it?

Nancy: Oh my, who told you?

Dame Edna: Like you, Nancy, I do a little bit of homework. I don't have to do much, but I feel it is polite. And you've always been such a stickler for accuracy in everything that I've read of yours. You choose words so carefully, and you believe in precision, and so do I.

Nancy: Well, thank you so much.

Dame Edna: I think people enjoy what I do in the theater, as opposed to television, because I, I love words, Nancy, I love words and I love accuracy. And you know, the essence of comedy, I think, is in describing things in a way that resonates truthfully with people. And even then, my choice of the word "resonate" sounded a little hackneyed. It's an overused word, don't you think?

Nancy: Well, if it fits… do you think there's a better word?

Dame Edna: You know what I've also noticed, in The New York Times and things like this, a word that crops up in reviews all the time: "endearing." You watch for it. It's used quite a lot. And in a way, it's sort of a qualification. They say, you know, "Amateurish, misanthropic, but curiously endearing."

And in art criticism, "numinous" is used a lot. Do you ever use that word?

Nancy: No. I've used luminous…

Dame Edna: I used to like you when

you freelanced for the Chicago Tribune.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because I think, I knew that you had a future when I saw that. There was something special about the way you wrote.

Nancy: Thank you. And here I am, in Florida.

Dame Edna: Well, I don't know what to think about Florida.

Nancy: I was going to ask you…

Dame Edna: I'm in Fort Lauderdale. I'll just give you a little bit of history, which you probably don't need, because you would've checked on these things. About 10 years ago, I did a show in London. Very, very ambitious. It was a musical based on my life… cast of thousands — the producer was Jeffrey Archer, the writer and politician. And as we got closer to first night, Nancy, I started getting misgiving feelings; something was wrong.

Nancy: What was wrong?

Dame Edna: What was wrong was that I wasn't on stage alone! I was somehow swamped by a lot of people. It wasn't simple. It was complicated. It was also a show that could never have broken even in a million years. And we opened to, I'm afraid — and what self-confidence and maturity I have to tell you this — we opened to stinkers.

Nancy: No!

Dame Edna: Yes! Yes Nancy, we did. Of course, the show was ahead of its time. It was cutting edge… when all edges were blunt.

Nancy: Well, you've always been ahead of your time.

Dame Edna: But Nancy, this was important for me, to happen. You know in your career, something happens and it leads to something else. I mean, even when they put that wrong picture of someone up on that big screen, you remember that? Of you? You remember when you won that arts award?

Nancy: Actually, I provided them with that picture.

Dame Edna: And it was a picture of someone else?

Nancy: I don't even know who they were. It was a couple from the '40s.

Dame Edna: You don't know who the couple in that nice black and white picture is?

Nancy: No. I don't have a nice picture like you have such a nice picture of yourself.

(When I learned I was nominated for Arts Journalist of the Year for the 2008 Alliance of the Arts' Angel of the Arts Award, I was asked for a photograph. But I didn't have a headshot. So I went to a local antiques store and picked out a nice black-and-white photo taken in the '40s. It showed a happy couple dancing together. This was the photo they showed on a big screen when my name was announced.)

Dame Edna: (Laughs) Well, these things lead to other things, they do. And I rang up Joan Rivers, who's a friend of mine, and I said, "Joan, this is a watershed." I had to explain what that meant, of course, and then…

Nancy: I guess you could have a different meaning for that.

Dame Edna: (Laughing) It's a turning point. And she said, "Why don't you do a show in California in… San Francisco. There's a lovely little theater in Union Square, book it for a short season." She said, "They'll love you. The Village People will come." I had no idea who they were. I thought they were dead. And she said, "With any luck, they'll bring their mothers and their aunties." So I did. I followed Joan's advice. Instead of two weeks, I played four months. I went on to Broadway. I won the Tony.

Nancy: Yes. And congratulations on that. (In 2000, Dame Edna received a special Tony Award for a Live Theatrical Event, a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Special Achievement Award for "Dame Edna: The Royal Tour." And in 2005, she received a Tony nomination for her Broadway show, "Back with a Vengeance.")

Dame Edna: After that, it was a turning point in my life. If I hadn't had that — I won't use the word "flop" — if I hadn't done that show that was ahead of its time, (laughs) what a euphemism… If I hadn't done that endearingly bad show, I wouldn't be here. Because America is considered to be the death, the graveyard of British comedy.

My comedy is Australian. I don't consider it comedy. It's just me sharing with the public. But a lot of British comedians have failed here. On the other hand, others, like Benny Hill, who comes from a vaudeville tradition, the Monty Pythons, who spring from something similar, and more recently… oh well, we can think of several, I can't think of any at the moment… Ricky Gervais has done well there, hasn't he? I don't get the point of him.

But it's very fashionable in England for people to say, "Well of course, the Americans have no sense of irony." There's a word much misused, by the way, and not understood.

Nancy: Can you enlighten us?

Dame Edna: Well, it's a subtle one, isn't it? It's a way of looking obliquely at the world. It's saying what you mean, in a kind of acrostic fashion. I argue back. I say, how come the best comedy shows are American? Explain the brilliance of "Frasier."

I had a horrible operation last year. I had a burst appendix and nearly died. I had peritonitis in Sydney. I'd forgotten I had an appendix. I was in hospital for a month. And I watched "Frasier." I watched 10 years of it… If you look at it, the writing, the characters, the performances, the wit, the observations… And it's an unlikely subject.

I just think so much of the best American comedy is far and away ahead of the rather homespun kind of British slapstick. You, of course, have that as well; you're a bigger country and a broader culture.

So I argue very much, I'm a big kind of champion of the United States, of your writers and your actors and your theater.

Dame Edna: By the way — Stetson, what nationality is that? Where does it come from? Scandinavian?

Nancy: It's an Americanized form of a Finnish name.

Dame Edna: Finland! I've been there! Have you ever been to Finland?

Nancy: No, I haven't.

Nancy: I have to ask you, because this is your "First Last Tour," and I'm concerned about that "last tour" business. I'm wondering how many you have planned.

Dame Edna: Well, I'm not like Cher. Have you heard of her?

Nancy: Yes, I have; I've been to one of her farewell concerts.

Dame Edna: Well, I'm not going to do an endless farewell tour. I am thinking of changing direction a little. I'm doing a lot of writing at the moment. I'm updating my autobiography… all kinds of things like that. And I'm having terrific difficulties with my manager, Barry Humphries.

Nancy: I know, you've talked about him.

Dame Edna: Barry, unfortunately, is a compulsive embezzler. You don't have a manager or an agent, do you?

Nancy: No.

Dame Edna: You're wise. You have to allow a margin for theft. But I haven't allowed a big enough margin for him. He's lived off me for years. He's sewn me up in a contract I can't get out of. So I have all this ongoing litigation. I also have problems with my family. My daughter will be in this show… my daughter Valmae. And she is dysfunctional. Seriously. Seriously dysfunctional.

Dame Edna: Now I have to go now, I'm afraid.

Nancy: Oh! It's been a pleasure talking with you.

Dame Edna: Me too, Nancy. I feel I'm in contact with a bracing intelligence! Which is also endearing!

Nancy: If you don't like endearing, what words would you like used in (reference to you)?

Dame Edna: Oh dear! Nancy: Obviously not endearing Dame Edna: Endearing, numinous.

Nancy: Oh Dame Edna, you're a scamp. Dame Edna: My favorite little Finn, that's what you are! Bye-bye.

If you go

>>What: "Dame Edna Live: My First Last Tour" >>Where: The Philharmonic Center for the Arts, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd., Naples

 

>>When: 8 p.m. Friday, April 10, and 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, April 11 >>Cost: $69. Call 597-1900 or www.thephil.org