Psycho Beach Party
By Charles BuschSetting - Malibu beach, 1962.
The play is a spoof - a cross between a 1960s beach party movie, like Gidget, and a psychological melodrama, like The Three Faces of Eve or Marnie. Marvel Ann, a "gorgeous blonde high school vamp," goes to the beach with her two friends on a manhunt. She flirts with Star Cat, a "hunk of a California he-man," who once longed to be a psychiatrist, until he realized his dream was childish, and now wants to be a surf bum. The next day, Marvel Ann tells him she was up all night thinking of the two of them married. He nervously tries to dissuade her, insisting he rejects materialism, and that she deserves better than a good-for-nothing beach bum.
NOTE: In the introduction of the play, Charles Busch writes that the role of Marvel Ann was originally played by a man, but it can also be performed by a woman.
MARVEL ANN:
(Petulant but still pleasant.) You don't know what you want. I think it's a horrid shame that you're throwing away a great future as a psychiatrist. All your wonderful compassion going to waste.
Oh, I know what you're going to say, "I just want a little shack by the water." Well, you can't expect me to live like that. Imagine me serving my friends Steak Diana Flambe in a lean-to.
Don't say a word, I know what you're thinking. "Marvel Ann is such a lovely person, in time she'd grow used to such a life."
Well, I'd be humiliated. Oh, I can read you like the funny papers.
(With growing fury.) You think I'm so head-over-heels in love with you, I'll accept whatever crumbs you have to offer. Well, no siree Bob, I am hardly a desperate female. Ohhhh, look at that awful expression in your eyes. I bet you think you don't even have to marry me, that I'd shack up with you like a common whore. Now you've really done it! I am livid. How could you think of such filth! You are a selfish, egocentric creep and my advice to you is to straighten up, buckle down, and apply yourself like any other decent, normal Presbyterian!! (She stalks off in a fury.)
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