G.K. Chesterton (Impersonator) to Visit Boston College

On October 7th, the St. Thomas More Society at Boston College will host John C. “Chuck” Chalberg, who has performed for audiences across the country by impersonating the English author G.K. Chesterton.

According to the Society of G.K Chesterton, Chesterton was an author who “wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems…five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories.” Chesterton is well-loved because “[he] was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology. His style is unmistakable, always marked by humility, consistency, paradox, wit, and wonder.”

Chalberg discovered the works of G.K. Chesterton while in college in the 1960s, when, he notes, Chesterton was virtually a “forgotten figure.” “The more I read Chesterton,” Chalberg remembers, “the more I thought ‘here’s somebody very much worth keeping alive.’” Chalberg has seen a rise in interest in Chesterton’s writing over his years of impersonating the author. The first conference he attended as G.K. Chesterton only had 30 people in attendance, but the most recent one—the 38th Annual Chesterton Conference, organized by the American Chesterton Society—had 500. According to Chalberg, interest in Chesterton’s writing has experienced “a real revival” in the past fifty years.

Chalberg got his start by doing impressions of historical characters, like Teddy Roosevelt, for the college history classes he taught. After he decided to also bring Chesterton to life through impersonation, Chalberg’s performances as the “apostle of common sense” took shape over a period of time. First, he read a great deal of Chesterton’s writing and wrote down the most memorable material on 5×8 cards. Over time, this material evolved into a script. 

Today, Chalberg has a diverse repertoire of performances as G.K. Chesterton. He has a “one-man show” performance (likely the one he’ll be performing at BC), and also a dozen lectures and talks that he gives in costume, including talk adaptations of Chesterton’s biographies of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis, a talk based on the observations he made of America during his 1921 visit, another on distributism, one on his conversion to Catholicism, and others. These talks are strewn with what Chalberg calls “Chestertonian asides,” moments when Chesterton diverges from his topic and demonstrates a particularly Chestertonian personality trait, like his tendency to be unable to suppress laughing at his own jokes.

Of the material that he touches on, Chalberg particularly enjoys performing Chesterton’s poetry, which he finds “insightful and funny,” qualities that he believes add to Chesterton’s rhetorical appeal. When Chesterton was accused of being unserious, Chalberg says, Chesterton replied that “the opposite of funny is not serious; the opposite of funny is not funny.” Chesterton saw no inconsistency between levity and insight, and he practiced both to the delight of his audiences. “In other words,” Chalberg says, “you can be funny and serious at the same time, and maybe even more effectively serious if you are funny.”

To get into character as G.K. Chesterton, Chalberg relies on the gravity of his costume (quite literally; it includes a fat suit). He says that taking on Chesterton’s persona is similar to what occurs in “the play about the trial of Galileo, where the pope is getting dressed to hear the case and he’s putting the vestments on…and as he gets dressed he takes on the persona of the prosecutor; by the time he’s fully vested he’s ready.” The costume has occasionally caused problems, however. Chalberg mentions that his most memorable moment in impersonating Chesterton occurred the first time he was in costume, when his pants fell down.

To ensure that his impression is as accurate as possible, Chalberg has studied the existing recordings of Chesterton’s speeches, emulating his voice (which is not as deep as one would assume coming from such a physically large person) and has received feedback on his pronunciations of words. 

Chalberg encourages students to come to STM’s event whether they are likely to agree with Chesterton or not: “He’s going to talk about feminism, and he’s going to talk about socialism, and he’s going to talk about Catholicism, and there are going to be lots of serious things and there’s going to be lots of fun. He was genuinely humorous, and if people don’t laugh a lot, I’ll be disappointed. And if people don’t walk away with things to think about I’ll be very disappointed.” 

Chalberg’s performance will take place at 7:00pm on October 7th in Gasson 305.