STAGE REVIEW : ‘Psycho Beach Party’ Has a Screw Loose : The show has energy and brass, but it lacks the one subversive ingredient that might have justified all the silliness.

Somewhere in the second act of “Psycho Beach Party,” the ultimate nerd and would-be surfer Berdine confides to her diary: “I am living proof of Sartre’s existential concept of nausea. . . . Gosh, I wish I had a Tums.” Well, thank God for Berdine. Without her--or rather Judi Geppert, the instinctively comic actress who plays her--this production of Charles Busch’s beach-blanket movie sendup would be all but unwatchable at the Way Off Broadway Playhouse.

Despite the show’s undeniable energy and brass, this is one “Psycho Beach Party” that won’t drive anyone crazy. Only Geppert’s antic, rubber-faced depiction of a goofy, downtrodden, bespectacled bookworm trying to tag along with a gang of surfers on Malibu Beach manages to transcend the monotony of the performances offered by the rest of the cast.

The central problem lies not so much in the absence of talent on the Way Off Broadway’s basement stage--though, at best, the talent hovers around high-school level--but in the lack of a transvestite ingenue for the starring role of Chicklet, the one subversive ingredient that might have justified all the silliness.

The casting of Kate Parham, an actual high school girl, misses the point. A crucial dimension of the play’s camp parody is lost when Chicklet--a Gidget-like teen-ager with the alter ego of an Amazonian dominatrix--comes off as even remotely realistic. Parham is entirely too credible as a winsome kid and not sufficiently plausible as a sadistic vamp. This inverts the humor, robbing the character of its satire. The entire conception of Chicklet must be spoofed, as the playwright intended when he played the role himself in the original New York production. Otherwise, the exaggerations of “Psycho Beach Party” lose their punch.

On the other hand, director Tony Reverditto seems throughout to have a misguided notion of what camp is. Just because a performance is earnestly ludicrous doesn’t make it camp. No character is played with more derisive intent, for instance, than Chicklet’s mother, a bitchy Hausfrau of utter ridicule in her corset and rubber gloves. Yet Michelle Fashian’s purposely whiny burlesque is a grating howler devoid of any amusement.

Meanwhile, the play itself suggests nothing so much as a nostalgic hunger for the very beach-blanket movies of the ‘60s that it parodies. In fact, it is filled with self-conscious allusions to a whole assortment of Hollywood genre flicks, including a plot twist about a squeaky-voiced starlet.

In terms of technical credits, “Psycho Beach Party” represents a devoted low-budget effort. The charming sandbox set is notable as is the vintage surf-music soundtrack. Be warned, however, that the small theater can get uncomfortably warm.

‘PSYCHO BEACH PARTY’

An Way Off Broadway Playhouse production. Written by Charles Busch. Produced and directed by Tony Reverditto, who also designed the set with Igor Reverditto and Del DePierro. Costumes by M.O. Lighting by Steve Schmidt. Art work by Michelle Fashian. Makeup by Paul Thompson. With Dennis Hall, Lisa Payne, Del DePierro, Keith Dooley, Brian McCoy, Kate Parham, Shawn Smyth, Judi Geppert, Sandy Trullinger, Michelle Fashian and Denison Glass.