It doesn’t take much digging to unearth the origin of Penguin Classics, the affordable paperback collection of familiar book titles meant to democratize reading. Founded in 1935 by UK publisher Allen Lane, Penguin Classics traces its identity to a single idea the literary entrepreneur landed on—a penguin, suggested by his secretary Joan Coles, as a “dignified but flippant” icon for the imprint. Lane knew his audience. And for better or worse, so does Garry Starr: Classic Penguins.
Now playing Off-Broadway at Studio Seaview, writer-performer Damien Warren-Smith waddles his way through the classics, wearing a tailcoat tuxedo jacket, flippers, and not much else. If shock comedy is your thing, you’ve arrived at the right place.
It wants better content.
Flippers on, filter off
“He is the one thing that’s ridiculous about me,” Warren-Smith told The AU Review of his alter ego clown Garry Starr. It’s like when people say something about you behind your back, and if you can find out what that is and open that wound up on stage, people will love you for it.”
Classic Penguins is, indeed, ridiculous. A bookshelf containing dozens of the classic paperbacks prompts Starr’s bits. Some is obvious—wagging his genitals while holding a copy of Moby Dick. Others land with a bit more intellectual curiosity, as when he collects cash from the audience (referencing John Fowles’ The Collector), then redistributes the money as a nod to Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto.
Later, Starr turns John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Grapes of Wrath into a food fight, followed by a stint of fetishized baby-birding that the audience at the performance I attended ate up—no pun intended.
Those craving emotional connection beyond Starr’s self-proclaimed “lowbrow” humor will find a glimmer when he invites an audience member into an intimate hug and slow dance, inspired by Timothy Conigrave’s 1995 gay memoir, Holding the Man. That, and a brief unspoken moment holding Yorick’s skull (Hamlet), reveal Warren-Smith’s theatrical sensibility lies far beyond pulling figurines out of his ass.
But you can expect that, too.
Is ‘Garry Starr: Classic Penguins’ worth seeing?
Garry Starr: Classic Penguins doesn’t need me on its side to work—it just needs a room willing to go along for the ride, and it finds one.
- Studio Seaview, 305 West 43rd Street, New York City
- Notable performers: Damien Warren-Smith
- Running time: 70 minutes, no intermission
- Performances through October 11, 2027
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