Comedians often describe the experience of performing in front of a live audience as being “naked from the waist down”. It’s meant to express the sense that they feel exposed as they let it all hang out on the stage. But in the case of Garry Starr Classic Penguins, that’s no metaphor. He is indeed letting it all hang out…for the entire show. And far from feeling any vulnerability, Starr fearlessly embraces his nudity with utter abandon. This solo act is probably among the most bizarre in the history of clowndom – and there is a lot of dumb in it. But Starr’s level of commitment to the premise is quite impressive. And while some in the audience were clearly put off by his antics, others were lapping it up…and believe me, that was literal too.
Back to that premise. The show’s program notes put it quite succinctly: Garry Starr is “hell-bent on saving books from extinction – by performing every Penguin Classic novel ever written in under an hour, (mostly) naked.” Before the play begins, we can see him seated upstage in a high-backed chair facing away from the audience. When he finally turns around, he’s wearing an Elizabethan collar, top hat, formal tales and what’s supposed to be webbed flippers on his feet, suggesting a penguin.
Everything that follows is farcically literal. One by one, he picks up books from an onstage shelf, and as the title is projected on an overhead screen, he enacts it: With Around the World in 80 Days, he holds up a globe and spins in a circle 80 times. From Grapes of Wrath to War and Peace, he arms an audience member with a bag of grapes to throw at him. That’s followed by A Clockwork Orange with the introduction of oranges which he instructs the volunteer to hurl in his direction. Incredibly the woman at my performance had great aim and nailed him in the head on the first throw.
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★★☆☆ review here.]
If all of this sounds ridiculously inane, that’s part of its appeal because as the stunts get nuttier we’re wondering what could he possibly do next. When he pulled out the book Hunger, he picked up the grapes from the stage floor, stuffed a handful in his mouth and proceeded to transfer them directly from his mouth into the mouth of another audience volunteer as if feeding a baby bird. Gross! Right? But craziest of all was his depiction of the Virginia Woolf novel The Waves. With all his clothes off, lying on his back, he had the audience pass him hand over hand from the first row all the way up to the top. Of course, he chose the section of the audience where I was sitting.
Starr’s real name is Damien Warren-Smith. We learn from the program notes that he’s a professionally trained clown and mime hailing from Australia where he “studied pretending” at Actors Centre in Sydney. His bio describes him as “an award winning writer, producer and performer of ‘brilliantly stupid physical comedy.” I would call it inspired stupidity because he’s apparently been very successful traveling the world with this brand of performance art. And it seems to be contagious. At one point he asked if anyone in the audience would like to join him sans clothes…and sure enough, a young man gamely volunteered, slipped into the wings and emerged buck naked. Was he a plant? Were they all? Hard to say. Still it was quite a surprise at the curtain call when six other people, presumably members of his creative team, came on stage dancing with nothing on but penguin masks.
The show, directed by Cal McCrystal, is pure escapist fare. Far from a classic itself, Garry Starr may not be for everyone, but at just over an hour, you can’t quite write it off. And judging by the enthusiastic reception at show’s end, it’s hard to deny there is method to the madness.
Garry Starr: Classic Penguins opened September 8, 2026 at Studio Seaview and runs through October 11. Tickets and information: studioseaview.com
