Who is that man in the sequins?

“America is a very conservative country… Those founding Pilgrim fathers are still in charge. And so much of what is original or creative is a rebellion against that. But it is still dominated by conservative influence. Are there any people in your community who have two husbands?”
Dame Edna Everage
Gay & Lesbian Times, 2009

This statement serves as subtext to the subversive dynamic of Barry Humphries’s character Dame Edna Everage. The Lady has her plan. For the uninitiated, Dame Edna is hardly a drag queen. She drags us through political commentary and social tyranny when we become her “guests” for an evening. Edna Everage is a Melbourne housewife who aspired to super stardom, succeeded, and bestowed with the royal nod. Her royal self appears at the Civic Theatre in her “First Last Tour.”

In his native Australia during the 1950s, Mr. Humphries began perpetrating Dali-esque performance events or “guerrilla” theatre offensives in his native Australia. These unrelenting performance art strikes cut through the razor-wire protected status quo.
Barry Humphries shows no sign of lagging at age 75 as he plays the world-stage.

An account of Humphries’s charitable activities caught me off-guard at a posh financial institution’s holiday party in the 1980s. The husband of a colleague perked up when I mentioned Dame Edna. The native New Zealander beamed, “I remember him! He came to the gay bars with his act to raise money for children’s charities.” His wife admonished, “You never told me you went to gay bars!” Ah, Dame Edna’s subversion at work 25 years after the act.

His is a career of industrious cultural output. Mr. Humphries has authored 22 books (titles include “Dame Edna's Coffee Table Book: A guide to gracious living and the finer things of life by one of the first ladies of world theatre” to “Neglected Poems and Other Creatures”). He just finished the film of the picaresque novel “Moll Flanders” in the role of Madam Needham under Ken Russell’s direction. He performed Shakespeare and musical comedy in London’s West End. Film and television appearances number over 75 with the majority produced in Australia and the UK (he penned 64 of the productions with 90% of his characters in star roles). Mr. Humphries wrote the ”Barry McKenzie" comic strip for Britain’s “Private Eye” magazine. His teeming artistic endeavors spread to the canvas as an accomplished landscapist. Not shabby for a former alcoholic.

Barry Humphries has delightfully scathed audiences on two continents for five decades with his fun-house mirrored view of our lethal and benign foibles. Greater America appears ready to catch up with this court jester to the English speaking world with his sequined dress.


Barry Humphries as Dame Edna in Her
“First Last Tour”
Civic Theatre
June 2-7, 2009
http://broadwaysd.com/ednashow.php