John Epperson in Sync With the Stars

Drag caricaturist John Epperson doesn’t settle for easy targets. There’s no Judy Garland among his impressions. Monroe and Mansfield materialize briefly, but there are also song bursts from Natalie Wood, Nanette Fabray and Ann-Margret. And snatches of telephone dialogue from pop icons like Ruth Draper, Susan Hayward and Connie Francis.

This one-man act featuring a cast of 30 great and second-rate female celebs is weirdly diverting. Epperson’s “I Could Go On Lip-Synching!� is tabloid theater, but there’s not a mean streak in his brightly rouged, eyebrow-arching, bony body. Imagine Eve Harrington understudying Joan Crawford.

Unlike female impressionists before him, Epperson’s demolition act is sound bites, the crazy notion that he can be entertaining by mouthing assorted divas. He’s right.

The soundtrack is a blizzard of famous voices and lines from five decades of cultural detritus, an aural equivalent of a movieola flashing Pop Art images at split-second intervals.

The show is a theatrical embellishment of Epperson’s cabaret performance last December at Cafe Largo. Now, with director-choreographer Justin Ross, Epperson has gone upscale, added props and cartoon backgrounds and a load of stardust finery to unfurl the adventures of his alter ego, an overdressed, star-crazed girl from Louisiana (Epperson is from Mississippi) named Lypsinka.

What’s refreshing is the lack of indulgence. The Cafe Largo show was 30 minutes longer. This one is a breeze, a smart move because a little of this goes a long way.

But there’s skill at play here. Whether as a dolled up, hayride marionette or Carmen Miranda, Epperson dances with trashy panache; his features are gargoylish and, remarkably, his lips don’t flub a beat in the syncopated carnage.

* “I Could Go On Lip-Synching!,� the Callboard Theatre, 8451 Melrose Place, West Hollywood, Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Fridays-Saturdays, 10 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Runs indefinitely. $18.50-$22.50. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 56 minutes.

Uneven ‘Misanthrope’ at the Complex

“The Misanthrope� is not as farcical as many of Moliere’s other plays and a director needs polished actors to pull off its intellectual comedy. Director Caroline Ducrocq’s company at the Complex is ambitious in its multicultural casting (black, white, Asian, Latino, American Indian) but uneven as an ensemble of stylish players.

The entitled Alceste, so fed up with hypocrisy he wants to withdraw from the world, is double cast with Mark Adzick and Kene Holliday. Celimene, the object of his love and representative of the society he detests, is also double cast, with director Ducrocq alternating with Earlene Smith.

I saw Smith and Adzick, and they catch the brittle jousting of their mismatched characters. But the classical diction in this Richard Wilbur translation seldom soars, and one actor is incomprehensible.

Suddenly Rosie Lee Hooks appears, and her raucous Arsinoe accelerates the show with a blazing, contemporary rap-delivered monologue that has the syncopation of jive. It’s the only moment when Ducrocq’s directorial concept of timelessness comes alive.

The director’s idea, complete with recorded selections from black musical artists, strives to push the work out of the 17th Century by costuming the characters from different historical epochs. The voluptuous, eye-popping Mariana Morgan’s comically seductive, love-smitten Eliante spills out of 20th-Century dresses.

The show, in fact, is a sexual divertissement . There’s homoerotica (check out Hosea Cobb, who looks like a character out of an Yvonne DeCarlo movie), sinuous crotch pawing and a shirtless Alceste hurling himself on the squealing Celimene.

* “The Misanthrope,� The Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m., through March 31. $12.50-$15. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

Groundlings Hone Improv Skills

The Groundlings were going to call their show “Groundlings vs. Godzilla� until threatened with a lawsuit by a Japanese conglomerate (Toho Co.) that considers Godzilla a sacred trademark.

But in light of the cozy material, “Groundlings Confidential� is more descriptive of the show’s tone. Little here is Godzilla-like.

An outrageous, disturbing political or social missile would be welcome. Occasionally a sketch is prickly: the talented Patrick Bristow telling a dinner companion how “Dances With Wolves� reformed and changed his life or a Pentagon spokesman using battlefield charts like those seen in Persian Gulf debriefings to describe “humor assaults� on resistant theater audiences.

And there’s a delicious reverse spin on date rape, with two women luring home a couple of sweet men and treating them like meat. This skit (“woMEN�) is pointedly dead-on and sharply played by Kathy Griffin, Cathy Shambley, Vic Wilson and John Cervenka.

The company has buffed and honed its improv craft to a shine, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the yeasty responses to audience suggestions (although the film-director improv game is getting old).

Particularly pungent are Lisa Kudrow as Audrey Hepburn obsessively pushing the cause of children and the multitalented Tim Bagley, who is the show’s meteor.

* “Groundlings Confidential,� Groundlings Theatre, 7307 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, Fridays-Saturdays; 8 p.m., Saturdays, 10 p.m. $15.50-$17.50. (213) 934-9700. Indefinitely. Running time: 2 hours.

Zephyr Transformed Into French Cafe

As environmental theater, the 1890s’ Montmartre spectacle “At the Cabaret Chat Noir� transforms the Zephyr Theatre into the cafe made famous by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and the Gypsies glorified in his poster art.

All these characters spring to life in a typical evening at the Chat Noir (“the Black Cat�) as patrons carry wine to their seats and mingle with the action. The luminous Stacey Scotte as Yvette Guilbert in her emerald green gown (“just out of a cab from the Moulin Rouge�) and Apache dancers Valentin and La Goulue (Nicholas Gunn and Paige Price) are emblematic of meticulously researched real-life entertainers of the time.

Arrive early enough to scan the “Chat Noir Journal� of a theater program. The arty Chat Noir influenced Josephine Baker, Maurice Chevalier, Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel and, by extension, the German cabarets of the ‘20s and American coffee houses.

Most of the show’s music (Debussy, Offenbach, Aristide Bruant and others) is historically authentic, played under gaslight with piano and banjo. The only detail missing is garter belts on the can-can dancers.

In fact, director David Arrow’s production seems to have everything right except a story line to sustain your enthusiasm. There’s almost no characterization and no narrative momentum but rather a jaunty sameness that goes round and round. That’s the show--a night in a French cabaret. But it sure beats the neighborhood bar.

* “At the Chat Noir,� Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. $18-$25. Ends March 31. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.