If we can joke, we're still alive, say Ukrainians using standup comedy as an outlet in Canada
CBC
Maria Kravchenko strides across her rented Toronto room, practising her English-language routine for Saturday's standup comedy show at Free Times Cafe in the downtown core.
The 27-year-old Odesa native arrived in Toronto two months ago from Riga, Latvia, where she fled to escape the war in Ukraine after Russia's invasion.
In Odesa, Kravchenko was a professional stage actress with dreams of getting a role on a Netflix show. In Toronto, she's working as an entertainer at children's birthday parties — and is now part of a growing group of Ukrainians who've been displaced by war and are using standup comedy to tell their stories.
Saturday's show will be her first time performing comedy in English.
"OK. I have a joke about relationships," she said, pausing to find the right words. "I just got divorced from my husband. We didn't see life in the same way. I didn't like his habits, and he didn't like my boyfriend."
"Do you think it's OK?" she asked, laughing at her own joke.
Kravchenko says everyday life inspires her comedy. Like how when she first arrived, she noticed how polite Canadians were.
"When Ukrainians quarrel we really quarrel; with yelling, and swearing. And then we make friends and say, 'Let's go for a drink,' " she joked, again with a laugh.
"Some jokes are more interesting in Ukrainian, and some are better in English. You have to find the right balance."
Finding that balance means making people laugh, and to Kravchenko, that's important.
"As long as we can joke, we are still alive," she said.
Jokes and laughter are also important to the other Ukrainians who gather at clubs around Toronto to perform standup routines in Ukrainian and English.
Comedian and organizer Alex Kotsyk has dubbed the group Ucrazy, both because it stands for Ukrainian and because everyone is "just a little crazy."
"We make fun of ourselves, that's the national tradition," he said. "That's in the genes."
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