I don’t envy the photographer hired to shoot production images for Garry Starr: Classic Penguins, a one-man comedy act performed by the Australian Damien Warren-Smith largely in the nude (save for an Elizabethan ruff collar and occasionally a black tail coat, top hat, and orange flippers). Warren-Smith, in the guise of his impish alter ego Garry Starr, outrageously flaunts his nakedness, shaking his member like a pinwheel and dangling it just over the heads of audience members in a deliberately provocative manner meant to tear down the walls of decorum as well as the strict niceties of the various theatrical genres he lampoons.
Needless to say, this is not a show for those easily offended by onstage nudity, scatological humor, or traditional boundaries between a performer and his audience. But for those willing to play along — and there were a surprising number of remarkably game co-conspirators at my show — Classic Penguins creates an antic sense of mayhem that may leave you gasping. Sometimes with laughter, but just as often with, “Did he just do that?” And more tellingly, “Did he just get a stranger to do that?”
While Warren-Smith was careful to elicit verbal consent with each new stunt — and to steer clear of theatergoers who clearly wanted nothing to do with participating — he managed to persuade an entire section of Studio Seaview to allow him to bodysurf over them, to get another audience member to appear naked on stage (briefly), and to persuade more than one to eat a grape from his mouth (sometimes after touching the stage floor), like a chick being fed by a mama bird. And that’s just the tip of the penguin-habitat iceberg that he conjures. There are moments later in the show that I dare not describe, as much as I yearn to unsee them.
Between the stunts, which suggest a blend of Jackass and old-fashioned clowning, Warren-Smith’s Starr offers rapid-fire riffs on a collection of 50 or so Penguin paperbacks of classic literature — which he pronounces, in faux snobbish fashion, with an extra syllable. Lit-er-a-tu-ré. The tomes are neatly stacked on an onstage bookcase, then plopped on the top shelf where a GoPro camera helps identify each title as it appears to punctuate the joke. He turns a fan on a spider plant to replicate The Wind in the Willows, dons a bonnet and protrudes his belly for The Handmaid’s Tail, and (you guessed it) waves his member to evoke Moby-Dick.
Some of his literary jokes have the faint whiff of political commentary, as when he runs through the audience gathering freely offered dollar bills for The Collector — only to hand them out to other audience members moments later when he’s turned the GoPro on The Communist Manifesto. But just as often, the English 101 conceit merely provides an excuse for Gallagher-level prop humor, pop culture signifiers, and punny silliness, backed by some well-chosen selections of pop tunes. Seldom does a punchline depend on your knowledge of the content of a great work, even glancingly.
Your enjoyment of Garry Starr will depend on your tolerance for its audacious mode of comedy as provocation. Warren-Smith has a fascinating rapport with the audience: relaxed but commanding, and ingratiating enough to lure the unsuspecting into his NSFW foolishness. Crucially, he never makes anyone but himself the butt of the joke. And his waxed-clean butt is very much on display throughout. He also knows not to overstay his welcome; under Cal McCrystal’s direction, the show gallops through its book shelves in a sleek 70 minutes. You can’t even make your way through CliffsNotes that quickly. ★★★☆☆
GARRY STARR: CLASSIC PENGUINS
Studio Seaview, Off Broadway
Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes (no intermission)
Tickets on sale through October 11 for $35 to $155