----- If you are interested in working with or joining TAGLARC, please call 416-960-8267.
-----TAGLARC is a member of the Toronto Theatre Alliance.
Every once in a while
you just have to see a play that is simply bizarre. One so outrageously
funny, you know there is no ulterior message to divine and define.
If there is a message at all, the playwright makes is so abundantly
clear that nothing short of re-titling the play would say it any
more clearly.
-----In this case the play is Psycho
Beach Party and the playwright is Charles Busch. This
prolific writer of cult hits holds several distinctions, including
Vampire Lesbians of Sodom¸ which, after a five-year run
in New York, became the longest running play in Off-Broadway history.
Psycho Beach Party hit the boards in 1988 and, though it didn’t
break VLOS’s record, did catch the attention of Kevin
Sheard, who has chosen it as the premiere production of the
new company, TAGLARC, until July 14 at the Betty Oliphant Theatre
of the National Ballet School at 404 Jarvis Street in Toronto.
-----Psycho Beach Party is
a clever spoof of the infamous 1960s beach movie craze. This camp
adaptation takes place on Malibu beach and hysterically intertwines
classic film moments from Gidgit, Psycho, Three Faces of Eve
and Spellbound. The plot, if there is one, revolves around
16-year old Florence Forrest (played by Greg Keon MacDonald)
and her insatiable quest to become a Surf Queen. Florence (nicknamed
"Chicklet" because when the other girls sprouted, and
became "chicks," she stayed behind, a skinny "chicklet")
has another problem, though: multiple personalities (best line:
"It’s like two Chicklets in one box."). But not
just two, two, two twits in one…Chicklet’s mind contains
a dozen or more alter-egos, including vamping domintatrix Anne
Bowman, soul-sister Safeway-checker Tye-Lee, male model heartthrob
Steve—all triggered with split-second transitions and hilariously
effected by MacDonald.
-----Chicklet’s problems stem,
of course, from her mother, a Joan Crawford Mommie-Dearest recreation
by Gordon MacKeracher. Other characters include the surf
bum gang of Frankie Avalon-inspired Starcat (Jake Chalmers),
nerdy Provoloney (George Krebs), Yo Yo (Jason Dyson)
and surf king Kanaka (Douglas Hurst); assorted airheads
and vanity princesses (Lisa Beam, Kerrigan Carbol, Susanne
Cooper), Sartre-spouting Berdine (Alana Hock), and
B-movie queen and would-be-recluse-if-it-weren’t-so-lonely
Bettina Barnes (Julie Sheppard).
-----Impossible to define, it’s
a wacky mix of Saturday Night Live and existentialist philosophy.
And it does have a message: "We are all family," coincidentally
the theme of this year’s Pride Week which its opening June
26 celebrates in Toronto. For tickets, $15 to 22, call TicketKing
(416-872-1212).
The Toronto Association for Gay and Lesbian Arts, Recreation
and Culture is a not-for-profit organization that was established
in 1996 by Kevin Sheard and Dave Ross. It is also the umbrella
organization for The Pink Toronto Awards. Psycho Beach Party
is TAGLARC's first theatre presentation. Currently, other
TAGLARC theatre projects under construction include Red Scare
On Sunset by Charles Busch and The Taffetas, a Musical
Journey Through the Fabulus Fifties.
----- If you are interested in working
with or joining TAGLARC, please call 416-960-8267.
-----TAGLARC is a member of the Toronto
Theatre Alliance.
