News-Leader.com – Larry Collins
If it’s true that girls just want to have fun, how do you satisfy the voracious appetites of a spunky Gidget-like teen who suffers from multiple-personality disorder? That’s the tongue-in-cheek question raised by “Psycho Beach Party,” Charles Busch’s spoof of silly surf-and-sand flicks of the early 1960s, as well as more earnest split-personality films like Hitchcock’s “Marnie” and “Spellbound.”
Busch’s satirical targets are even more dated now than when the play premiered in 1987, but teenage angst and sexual identity confusion are eternal. Vandivort 2nd Stage’s maiden production, directed with a fine sense of the ridiculous by Tim Caldwell, offers campy, over-the-top humor scored to such era-defining hits as “Where the Boys Are,” “Bobby Sox to Stockings” and “Pineapple Princess.”