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. "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." 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.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
