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February 20, 2004/Shevat 28 5764, Vol. 56, No. 22
Comedian celebrates value of laughter
JENNIFER GOLDBERG
Staff Writer
When Yakov Smirnoff was a young boy living in Russia, he learned an important lesson: Being funny is a good way to get girls.
"I wasn't very athletic, and the athletes, the hockey players and the soccer players, they were the ones who got girls," he recalls. One day, Smirnoff made a joke at the teacher's expense, and "everyone cracked up, and I had to go the principal's office, but after that, the girls started looking at me differently. It made me want to do more of it."
The power of laughter to attract and connect two people is the central theme of Smirnoff's recent stage hit, "As Long As We Both Shall Laugh." The show, which opened in New York last year, received good reviews and extended its six-week engagement to 12 weeks due to popular demand.
"As Long As We Both Shall Laugh" is a one-man show in which Smirnoff delivers his unique perspective on a universal topic: keeping the laughter in a relationship.
"The show was written because I learned that when laughter is gone out of the relationship, it's a very important sign," Smirnoff says. "When I noticed that correlation, it was almost like I became a scientist and I wanted to understand it more in detail."
Smirnoff spent five years preparing "As Long As We Both Shall Laugh," including traveling around the world discussing the topic, attending seminars and drawing upon his own life experiences. The result, says Smirnoff, is a family-friendly performance intended to celebrate and make people realize the importance of laughter in their relationships.
One aspect of Smirnoff's comedy that sets him apart from other comedians is his ability to look at American culture as an outsider. Smirnoff grew up in Communist Russia, where he and parents lived under an oppressive regime. Although the family is Jewish, neither Smirnoff nor his parents were allowed to practice the religion in their native country.
"My parents were born right around the Revolution," Smirnoff explains. "They were little when (the government) said, 'No religion.' So they were brought up without any knowledge of Yiddish or Hebrew and no synagogues."
When Smirnoff was born in 1951, the religious climate had not changed. His parents didn't tell him he was Jewish until he was 13 years old, because "in those days, right after the war when millions of Jews were killed, they didn't want to be persecuted, and they didn't want me to experience the pain. They were protecting me," he says. "But that era was scary for everyone. Any religion was totally forbidden. If you said 'God' in school, you would be expelled."
When Smirnoff and his parents immigrated to the United States in 1977, he was able to find humor in the differences between the Soviet Union and the United States and in his assimilation into American culture.
"I didn't speak English at all. I watched television at first to learn the language, then I realized it was a Spanish station," Smirnoff jokes.
He began his American comedy career in small nightclubs, moving eventually to guest appearances on television shows like "Night Court." For several years in the late '70s and early '80s, he was the roommate of notorious comedian Andrew Dice Clay.
Movie appearances in films including "Moscow on the Hudson," "Brewster's Mill-ions," and "Heartburn" followed, but when Com-munism collapsed in the early '90s, Smirnoff found that his niche as a Cold War comedian was no longer in high demand. In 1992, Smirnoff moved to Branson, Mo., opened a theater, and began performing hundreds of shows annually. His location in Branson seats 2,000 people, and his current show is a variety act that includes comedy, Russian dancers, jugglers and more. Conversely, "As Long As We Both Shall Laugh" is much more personal.
"This is a more sophisticated product. It's heartwarming stories mixed with a lot of laughter. People cry and laugh. It's more provocative," says Smirnoff. After the show ends, Smirnoff holds an "enrichment workshop" of sorts, an interactive program on how to create laughter in the home.
"I give people the tools and secrets of how I create laughter on a daily basis, and how they can do it themselves," he explains.
Despite rave reviews from the New York Post and New York Times newspapers, Smirnoff says that the best review he's received for "As Long As We Both Shall Laugh" came from his then-12-year-old daughter: "Daddy, your show is like a Disney movie: you laugh, you cry but you always learn something."
Details
- What: "As Long As We Both Shall Laugh"
- Where: Orpheum Theatre, 203 W. Adams St., Phoenix
- When: 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27
- Cost: $32.50-$35.50
- Call: 602-262-7272
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