A huge bespangled pair of her signature pink glasses descends from the ceiling. Sitting on the nose piece is Dame Edna Everage, resplendent in – what else? – a gaudy pink frock, pink glasses and that incredible pouf of cotton-candy pink hair.

Dame Edna: Back with a Vengeance! plays through April 9 at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.

She looks great, even after all these years. Barry Humphries created Dame Edna in 1955 as a parody of a Melbourne housewife. She’s morphed over the years into a flaming takeoff on showbiz celebrity, complete with a barely disguised disdain for cheap shoes and cheap seats.

She counsels the balcony crowd (“the ones stuck to the ceiling”) to “clap with one hand and hang on with the other.”

She announces that in an effort to give something back to the city, they’ve picked up a group of “the institutionalized” and put them in the box seats (“those ashtrays up there”), so “we can keep an eye on them.”

Along with her “Gorgeous Ednaettes” (dancers Teri DiGianfelice and Michelle Pampena, and lovely they are) and her Master of Musick (pianist Wayne Barker), Dame Edna talks to the audience about her family, including her hapless invalid and now dearly departed husband, Norman, who “became the face of the prostate in Australia.” Also up for discussion: son Brucie, daughter Valmai (“a disappointment”) and dress designer son Kenny, who “told me he was a homeopath. At least that’s what I think he said. He was an altar boy; he toyed with the priesthood.”

Dame Edna occasionally dips into politics (“I gave the president a lovely Christmas present: a word-a-day calendar”) or film stars: “‘Disciple’ is defined as one who wishes to be picked on. Mel Gibson told me that.’”

But “this show is all about you,” she sings, and the front rows will soon find out how true that is. Dame Edna’s Borscht belt-style comedy show involves interactions with selected audience members in the first few rows. To a latecomer: “We’ve been waiting for you,” followed by a double-time reprise of the show to that point and embarrassing questions about why she didn’t arrive on time.

Claiming to read shoes the way some people read tea leaves or coffee grounds, Dame Edna casts a net into the first few rows and asks three of the women she has chatted with to contribute one shoe each. One she pronounces “a stalker-resistant shoe. Nobody would follow anyone wearing those.” She then tosses a fluffy pink slipper to each woman.

But the most fun is in the second act when, resplendent in a costume that can only be described as too much, she asks all the previously humiliated to come backstage, where they will be costumed, handed a script and asked to perform a kitchen scene from Edna’s early marriage. It’s impossible not to giggle at this effort.

After that, the women get their shoes back and Dame Edna wraps up with her signature gladioli toss, accompanied by an audience-participation song.

OK, it’s hokey, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t fun. It’s no wonder Dame Edna, who drips gaudy glitz and whose every costume is wilder than the last, has become one of the most enduring and best loved comedy characters of all time. Just be careful where you sit.

Dame Edna: Back with a Vengeance! plays through April 9 at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Shows Tuesday through Saturday at 8:00 p.m., with matinees Saturday at 2:00 p.m. and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. For tickets, call (213) 628-2772 or visit www.taperahmanson.com.

A beautifully detailed silk corset on a dressmaker’s dummy takes center stage when the lights come up on Esther Mills (Lisa Renee Pitts) working at a treadle sewing machine.

The year is 1905, the place New York, and Esther makes a modest living sewing undergarments for fancy ladies, whores and anyone else who can pay. “It was either learn to sew or turn back sheets for 50 cents a day,” she explains to Mr. Marks (Lance Smith), the Jewish merchant from whom she buys fabric.

Esther lives in a boarding house run by Mrs. Dickson (Sylvia M’Lafi Thompson), and at 35 has reached the stage where she is tired of sewing for everyone else’s wedding, though she feels herself too plain to hold out hope for one of her own. So she pours her life and emotions into her work, which is at least properly appreciated by a range of clients including the vivacious hooker Mayme (Lisa H. Payton) and uptown rich bitch Mrs. Van Buren (Lisel Gorell-Getz).

An unexpected letter from Panama gives her something interesting to think about (or would, if she could read). Her correspondent is George Armstrong (Michael A. Shepperd), working on the Panama Canal.

Mrs. Van Buren reads it to her and writes the response. George and Esther carry on a post-office courtship until George arrives to claim her as his bride, at which point her life becomes much more complicated.

Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel, on the San Diego Repertory Theatre stage through April 9, is a funny, sad, charming and depressing portrait of the turn-of-the-century life of middle-class blacks in New York. Nottage based Esther on her great-grandmother, whose life paralleled that of the fictional seamstress. It’s a story about which little has been written.

“I’m very aware of my exclusion from the historical record,” Nottage has said. “I do feel that my part as a writer is to rectify the wrongs, to reclaim history.”

Delicia Turner Sonnenberg directs a fine cast on Fred Kinney’s terrific split-level set, and with Jennifer Setlow’s suggestive lighting. Pitts’ Esther shows amazing pluck and strength, but also a vulnerability that may get her into trouble. Thompson, Payton and Gorell-Getz are always a pleasure to watch. Shepperd and Smith are very good, but both are saddled with accents that make their lines not always clear.

Intimate Apparel runs through April 9 at San Diego Repertory Theatre. Shows Wednesday through Saturday at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 7:00 p.m., with matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. For tickets, call (619) 544-1000 or visit www.sandiegorep.com.