“Garry Starr: Classic Penguins” is an evening of good silly naked fun

Are you tired of earnest dramas? Psychological thrillers? Post-apocalyptic regret? Then take yourself over to off-Broadway’s Studio Seaview. There you’ll meet Australian-born comedian Damien Warren-Smith in Garry Starr: Classic Penguins. Warren-Smith is a true zany in the classical tradition of anything-goes comedy.

You will likely go home with your sides aching from laughter as he performs kamikaze comedy not usually seen on stage — unless you’re a frequent visitor to fringe festivals.

Warren-Smith, an award-winning writer and actor, plays Starr, a performer whose intent is to rescue the written work by reacquainting you with works published by the venerable British paperback publisher Penguin Books. In fact, he wants to give you a taste, not just of a few of these books, but of all of them.

Starr is a fearless character, starting out the evening wearing only a formal coat, an Elizebethan ruff, a top hat, and orange flippers, looking like a human approximation of a penguin. During the course of the evening, he removes all these accoutrements, baring all for his art.

As for the books, he takes copies of the original Penguin paperbacks from an on-stage bookshelf, projecting the covers onto a large video screen upstage. He does a rapid-fire set of sketches based on the titles of the 50-odd books on his shelves. These include Frankenstein, Brideshead Revisited, The Little Prince, Gulliver’s Travels, The Grapes of Wrath, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Great Escape, Love in the Time of Cholera, and The Communist Manifesto.

Quite often Starr solicits volunteers from the audience to perform with him on stage. His interactions with the audience are all within a loose definition of “the bounds of good taste”. In other words, as directed by Cal McCrystal and written by Warren-Smith, Starr’s act is all about fun and not about embarrassment.

It’s impossible to say more about this show without spoiling the surprises it contains. Suffice it to say that if you see Garry Starr: Classic Penguins, you’ll probably have a wicked good time. I urge you to see Garry Starr: Classic Penguins before its short run comes to an end!

Garry Starr: Classic Penguins is presented at Studio Seaview, 305 West 43rd St., New York, through Oct. 11th. This production is strictly for audiences 18 years of age and up. For more information or to purchase tickets, go to studioseaview.com.