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By H. Alan Scott
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Damien Warren-Smith is a performer unlike any other currently doing theater in New York City. He stars as his alter ego, Garry Starr, in Garry Starr: Classic Penguins, a show that is part plea for people to read classic literature and part clown show, complete with nudity. It is that combination that only a talent like Warren-Smith can pull off.
"It's me as Garry Starr, who's this kind of idiot character who's attempting to save literature by performing every Penguin Classic novel ever written in the space of an hour, thus saving both penguins and literature from extinction, because he somehow believes that penguins wrote all the Penguin books," Warren-Smith told Newsweek's Parting Shot podcast. A trained clown (yes, you can actually study to become one) at prestigious schools like École Philippe Gaulier in Paris and Atelier des Mimes in Berlin, Warren-Smith approaches clowning in ways audiences rarely see anymore.
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"This is why I think clown is a superpower. You see people with similar styles of performance, but the really great clowns are nothing like each other, because they've tapped into their own personal humiliation, and now they wear it with these beautiful open hearts and offer it to the world. This is kind of what Garry is for me."
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As the show has traveled the world, audiences certainly come for the unlikely combination of comedy and nudity, but after a while, you get past the nakedness of it all and witness Warren-Smith delivering a kind of modern clowning you rarely see these days.
"The people who aren't told about the nudity and come and see the show, I would say almost unanimously say the same thing: I'm so glad I didn't know about the nudity, because I wouldn't have come, but I'm so glad that I did, because you forget very quickly about it. The nudity is just there, and then it becomes a costume."
For many, the word clown conjures the image of a typical circus performer. Warren-Smith takes that concept and offers a wildly different take on modern clowning, and honestly, it is a sight to see. Watching Warren-Smith live, sure, you are laughing at the naked man onstage, but what you are actually witnessing is the evolution of a performer at the top of his game, evidence of the years of work he has put into his craft.
"It's almost like going through therapy until you can come out the other end and go, okay, I'm ready to be laughed at now," Warren-Smith says of his evolution as a clown. "I used to be laughed at, and now I've put all of those things into a little container, and I'm just feeding it to the audience. It's uniquely me."
Warren-Smith spoke with Newsweek about Classic Penguins, modern clowning and the nakedness of it all. Below is an edited and condensed transcript of the conversation. Listen to or watch the full chat on the Parting Shot podcast.
You have been all over my social media feed.
Sorry about that. I literally just said to them today, can we post a little bit less? Even my friends are like, why are you guys doing this so much? I have nothing to do with it, I don't even look at it anymore. But I get it, you have to promote a show.
But I think there is a reason you're all over my feed, people are genuinely excited about this weird show of yours, something that is hard to explain. So what is the show about?
It's nice of you to say sort of weird, because it's actually just full blown weird. It's me as Garry Starr, who's this kind of idiot character who's attempting to save literature by performing every Penguin Classic novel ever written in the space of an hour, thus saving both penguins and literature from extinction, because he somehow believes that penguins wrote all the Penguin books. So if I can get people to buy the Penguin books, then they'll have enough money to fix the South Pole somehow as well. I don't know.
You're very funny and talented, but you're also naked in the show. What is that?
Yeah, I only just found out, because I hadn't seen any photos of the show. Someone took some pictures and I was like, what, have I got no pants on the whole time? Well, Garry's dressed as a penguin, because he believes that he is part penguin. This is why it's his life mission, and it's also why it's not cultural appropriation to dress as a penguin, because he is part penguin. He believes that he's a penguin, so he dresses as a penguin. Of course, penguins don't wear pants, so why would you wear pants in a show? It would just be weird.
But how do people react to the nudity?
It's in many different ways. The people who haven't seen the show and are told about the nudity are either "yeah, that sounds great" or "absolutely not, I don't want to see that." The people who aren't told about the nudity and come and see the show, I would say almost unanimously say the same thing: I'm so glad I didn't know about the nudity, because I wouldn't have come, but I'm so glad that I did, because you forget very quickly about it. The nudity is just there, and then it becomes a costume. And then you remember, at the times where it is important to remember, and it's all of a sudden very funny.
As a performer, being naked on stage, I feel like that adds a different layer of prep. How did you prepare to be naked so much doing this show?
Honestly, I don't even think about it anymore. I've talked to other performers who perform naked, and they'll say it's very different to be naked on stage and off. I always make sure my dressing room is private, but on stage it doesn't bother me. I think part of it is that my dad was a naturist, so it was always just kind of there. I can't relate to people who are squeamish about nudity.
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When you're putting this show together, how did this character come about over the years?
I was an actor for about 15 years before I even discovered theater clowning, because all I knew of clowns was the circus. Then I was in Edinburgh, around 2009, and I saw a show by a company called Spy Monkey, theater clowns trying to do Moby Dick in an hour with four idiots. It was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. I was like, what is this? I want to do this. I went away and retrained as a clown. I went to Paris and trained with Philippe Gaulier, the master clown who trained them. After that I formed a clown troupe called The Plague of Idiots, and I was the MC boss character. First they just called me Monsieur, and then the director said I should give him a name. I said Garry. He said, and a surname. I said Starr. Garry Starr popped up as the MC boss clown of that troupe.
We toured for a while, lost loads of money, and then disbanded because we were all from different countries: Paris, Switzerland, Italy, England and Australia. I ended up living in Berlin, working as a fitness instructor. I'd left acting behind, and I'd studied clown, but it takes a long time for clown to really sink in, because you've almost got to wear that cloak of humiliation for a while. It's very much about making yourself the object of laughter, and the funniest thing about you is usually what you're most ashamed of. It's almost like going through therapy until you can come out the other end and go, okay, I'm ready to be laughed at now. I used to be laughed at, and now I've put all of those things into a little container, and I'm just feeding it to the audience. It's uniquely me. That's also why it's hard to describe, because it's not like anything else, which is a producer's nightmare to begin with and then a dream come true, because the word of mouth just spreads. People don't just tell their friends about it, they buy another ticket so they can bring a friend and watch them experience it for the first time. That's how the snowball happens. Everywhere we've gone, if it hadn't sold out in the first week or two, by the end you couldn't get a ticket.
Is the show always the same, or does it change night to night?
It's constantly changing, and I'm constantly being surprised by it, which is why I can do this for 300 performances and not even be close to getting bored, because everything that happens is different. Unlike standup, where I kind of know where the laughs are going to come, with clown, if you do something and people laugh, you can do it again, then change it, then surprise it and subvert it, and the laughter builds. That's difficult with standup. There are only so many times you can tell one joke with the same punch line. Clown is rhythm and play. Comedy is literally joking and clowning: you're either providing the subject for laughter or making yourself the object of it. The great standups, you don't know which one they're doing, because you're laughing so much. I'm joking quite a bit, but I'm clowning far more.
What is the difference between Damien and Garry?
I deliberately keep my name off everything, because I like people to still come to the end and think, is this guy really this idiot? Because this is the thing I love about this type of clown. I'm not wearing the red nose and the floppy shoes, so people don't immediately think, oh, he's a clown, I'm expecting something. The kind of clowning I love is the audience thinking, what is going on, who is this person, what is wrong with them, why are they here, how did their life bring them to this point. So I don't want to be credited by name. I'm happy if people know it's Garry, but if someone comes up to me and says "hey Garry, great to see you," as if they know me, I like that too, because they don't actually know who I am. I look exactly the same as Garry, except I've got clothes on. So if people think they know me but call me Garry, I don't feel bad that I don't know who they are. That's a nice thing.
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