A Viable Alternative

The Dream Girl Revue at Ripple’s invites comparisons to the fabled Birdcage in Miami or a Vegas spectacular. But this is Long Beach, not South Beach, and odds are you’d have to look a long way from the craps table to find a show and crowd quite like this in any Nevada casino.

Ripple’s has been around for 25 years, still reigning supreme as the area’s preeminent alternative lifestyles bar. Before Larry Hebert and John Garcia took over more than two decades ago, this spacious, 5,000-square-foot establishment was known as Mary’s Celebrity House.

Downstairs, Ripple’s looks like a typical neighborhood bar; there are video machines, a game room, a corn popper and an outdoor patio.

Upstairs, where themed evenings--including Flashback Fridays (featuring ‘70s disco) and the famous Sunday Beer Bust (centering on a buffet and mass quantities of beer)--take place, there is a showroom atmosphere complete with follow spots, a killer sound system and twirling, glittery spheres fashioned out of cut squares of glass.

The audience sits on wooden folding chairs painted a stark white. Small, round bar tables are draped in black oilcloth.

Meanwhile, the show provides all the color a person could want.

In case you haven’t guessed, the Dream Girls are female impersonators who go by the names Onyx, Ladonna, Marilyn, Nicole and Fontasia. The troupe has been together 12 years and performs regularly in San Diego and Palm Springs; the experience shows.

After the initial dazzle of an opening number featuring a trio of blinding, purple-sequined costumes, I had to take a minute to decide whether the performers were lip-syncing their impressions. They are, it happens, but their consummate skill makes almost nothing in this show readily apparent.

Perhaps the most outrageous member of the troupe is Marilyn, a cooing, quivering comedian who could be described as Divine meets Fran Drescher. Her white-evening-gowned impression of Marilyn Monroe having her dress blown upward by a fan--a la “The Seven Year Itch”--is priceless.

The 90-minute show consists mostly of costumed numbers mimicking such performers as Grace Jones, Chita Rivera, Dolly Parton, Madonna and the inevitable Tina Turner doing “Proud Mary.” (Is there a drag show in the English-speaking world that doesn’t include Tina?)

Some of the impressions are terrific. Fontasia, a costume designer, does a wonderfully athletic take on the Spider Woman from that Broadway musical. Onyx, the most physically imposing performer, makes an even more riveting impression as Grace Jones, standing close to 7 feet tall in a hatted replica of Jones’ trademark hair.

This is great fun and a terrific value to boot. It is also a hoot to watch the audience shower the performers with dollar bills during the numbers. If you don’t get a kick out of the Dream Girl Revue, it is time to have your laugh meter checked.

BE THERE

Ripple’s, 5101 East Ocean Blvd., Long Beach. (562) 433-0357. Dream Girl Revue at 9 p.m. on Thursdays only. Cover: $5.