Photograph courtesy Mrs. Roper Romp
In and around Cincinnati, there have been a handful of small gatherings over the past few years of boisterous women (and some brave men) partying in curly red wigs, vintage caftans, and jewelry better measured in poundage than carat weight. The October 3 Mrs. Roper Romp in Lockland may not be the first, but it promises to be the biggest and (fingers crossed) the gaudiest.
The idea is as simple as it is silly: Emulate a beloved character from late 1970s television by donning floor-length frocks, sipping oversized drinks, and partying with cringe-tastic lookalikes. Dance like no one’s watching, even though these days everyone is watching, not to mention videotaping.
Helen Roper might have been a forgotten (if fabulous) footnote of sitcom television when she appeared on the hit show Three’s Company. She was just a minor character for the first two of the show’s eight years on the air (1976-1984), but something struck a chord about the vivacious and sex-starved 60-something wife of Stanley Roper, the cheap and crotchety landlord of Jack, Chrissy, and Janet (played by John Ritter, Suzanne Somers, and Joyce DeWitt, respectively). Played with wit and heart by Audra Lindley, Helen Roper endeared herself to audiences, especially among newly liberated women who wanted more out of life … and more in the bedroom, too.
The Ropers got their own eponymous sitcom in 1979-80 in which the couple relocates from Santa Monica to an upscale California suburb. The Ropers might have wound up on the dustheap of failed spin-offs if not for the lovable lightning rod that was Mrs. Roper: socially ambitious, seemingly a foot taller than her put-upon husband, and—notably—childless. In the television family tree of frustrated suburban housewives, she’s a sort of forebear to Katey Segals’s Peg Bundy (Married…with Children, 1987-97); stepchild of Bea Arthur’s Maude Findlay (Maude, 1972-78); and grandbaby of Lucy Ricardo (I Love Lucy, 1951-57).
“She had a martini in one hand and lot of jewelry on the other, and she just didn’t care,” says Lori Raby, who at 53 cheerfully rides the menopausal wave currently crashing across social media. (Look into Melody Sanders’s viral “We Do Not Care” posts). Raby, a Lockland City Councilmember, expects a couple of hundred Mrs. Ropers to clomp in platforms and fuzzy mules to the corner of Mill and Dunn streets to boogie to ’70s and ’80s dance hits, have their palms read, and fill their bellies with meats grilled by hunky local firemen.
No costume? No problem! Lockland’s three vintage shops will purvey appropriate accoutrements. Gina Lynn’s Fabulous Finds, owned by fellow organizer Regina Richmond, will set you up with a caftan and two accessories for $25.
Mrs. Roper Romps began in 2013 as part of Southern Decadence, the annual LGBT shindig in New Orleans that rivals Mardi Gras in both headcount and level of camp. Romps have since spread across the nation, offering a respite from doomscrolling with an excuse to act like an opinionated, horny broad. “It’s all about the big attitude, having fun, and being free,” says Richmond.
Lockland’s Romp will make use not only of the neighborhood’s wide streets and critical mass of secondhand shops but also its longtime watering hole, Wolfman’s Tavern. To be renamed The Regal Beagle for the day—after the hangout in Three’s Company—it will serve specialty beverages in colors not found in nature.
Actual beagles may wind up benefitting from the event, since a portion of participant donations will go to Pets in Need of Greater Cincinnati.
The very best Mrs. Roper will win $100. But money isn’t the point of the event. Says one regular on the Roper Romp circuit, “This movement is bigger than a wig, a dress, and big glasses.”
