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“I'm glad you didn't ring a minute earlier because I was with my gynecologist," declares Dame Edna Everage in lieu of hello, "and he said that I was fit for Broadway. He said, 'Edna, you've still got your drives and juices, and you're all ready for The Great White Way.' Mind you, it wasn't The Great White Way he was looking at."

Ordinarily, a "phoner" is not your finest form of journalistic communication, but there is always the danger of being too close, and 2,991 miles seems a respectful distance for that sort of revelation. At least the dowager from Down Under doesn't see the dumbstruck jaw-drop at the other end of the line. She's too busy surveying vistas beyond the Vista Room of her Vancouver hotel; mostly, she sees Broadway on the horizon.

Yes, possums, the gladiolas are in bloom again, and Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance!, devised, written and inhabited by Australian actor Barry Humphries, returns this gracious star to the scene of her previous Tony-winning triumph (actually, to the Music Box, across the street from her former stand, the Booth). Scheduled date of arrival: Nov. 5, or, as it's known in Britain and Australia, "Guy Fawkes Night," after the guy who tried to blow up Parliament in 1605. Fireworks and bonfires still mark the spot there. Here, we'll have a titled firecracker back in Main Stem harness, flinging "gladioli" democratically, willy-nilly at her adoring disciples in the audience — to the fans downstairs as well as to the "paupers" in the balcony. Noblesse oblige, y'know.

Such pronouncements actually sound plausible coming from a voice that steamrolls out in what could charitably be called a refined croak — sort of an uncommitted falsetto — as if it were coming from a lofty altitude that supports only one answer: hers. In such a manner, Dame Edna vents her idiosyncratic world-view, flaunting it like a flag.

She presses on with guileless gusto. "I don't dabble in American politics, but, between you and me and the readers of Playbill, my guess is you'll need a good laugh." Which is why her show begins previews three days after the election. Freud said that there are no accidents.

"Freud — well, I'm rather in favor of him, aren't you? He showed us a new way of looking at our dreams. It was always my dream to be a Broadway star, and it came true four years ago, and when I left, psychiatrist pals of mine told me a deep depression settled over the sophisticated theatre community. It was called EDS — Edna Deprivation Syndrome — so I'm really coming back not because it was my idea — I'm coming back on medical advice. People have begged me — doctors have pleaded with me for their patients. Busloads of depressives are already setting out to see my show. They come in in a terrible mood and leave, pretty, well . . . dangerous."

In addition to this magnanimous curtsy to worldwide mental health, the game dame will do a little marriage counseling on the side during her show. Her credentials? "Well, I've helped a lot of marriages. The fact that the Clintons are still together is entirely due to me. The Queen and Prince Philip — still married, thanks to me. . . "

The topics up for discussion (or is it digression?) are unending. "I cover the whole of human experience," she says with all manner of modesty. "It's a meditation out loud. Broadway audiences are used to going to the theatre and seeing shows which are carefully scripted. Never do they see a show where a woman loiters on the stage, thinking aloud."

All else failing, she can always dip into her own dysfunctional, soap operatic dynasty. Her first-born, Kenny, is her seamster-in-residence. "I'm wearing more beautiful frocks than usual in this particular show, and they all must go with the set, which is very simple and mostly in different shades of crimsons. There's a lot of ruching."

Her estrangement with daughter Valmai is as wide as ever, but she's thankful Valmai no longer lives with Fern Bratislava, a retired Czechoslovakian tennis player and breeder of pit bulls. "In my opinion — forgive me, call me old-fashioned — I felt it an inappropriate relationship. But haven't you found that most relationships are a bit inappropriate?"

There is a third child, Bruce, but she has never mentioned him — until this show, primarily because of his wife, Joyleen, who, in the dame's restrained view, "is a human monster. She comes to New York while I'm here and gets the best tables in restaurants, pretending to be me. Bruce refuses to divorce her. He says that he is in love with her."

Love has many faces, I assure her consolingly. "And," she adds quickly, "many backsides."