November 07, 2009

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The Real Yakov Smirnoff

Spend a day in the life of Branson's funny, yet surprisingly serious, Soviet-turned-proud American.

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Photo Edward Biamonte Yakov's office has electric blue carpet and vibrant pictures that he painted himself.

Something’s different about Yakov Smirnoff today. At a Saturday morning show in his eponymous theater, he’s not telling jokes about Russia or using catchphrases or really doing anything that you expect to see at a Yakov “What a Country!” Smirnoff show. In the second half of the variety act, Yakov, clad in a white lab coat, gives the mostly seniors crowd relationship advice, using a magnet to demonstrate the rules of attraction and repulsion.

It turns out that Yakov had recently gone through a rough divorce, and while there are a few cursory jabs at the differences between men and women, Yakov is being incredibly earnest in his lecture… Wait, Yakov is giving a lecture? Here’s a comedian, changing the figurative horse midstream and giving advice on making relationships work. Yakov asks long-married couples in the audience what their secret is and what young people can learn from them. He is probing with somber questions and ideals. He wants to know “what did I do wrong, and why do relationships go wrong for so many people? Why weren’t jokes enough to make it work? And what can we do to fix this great problem?” It’s a strange new show, one that reveals a more intimate, odder side of the man. He seems so alien when juxtaposed with the smiling, grateful immigrant we know so well, this man who wears his heart on his sleeve when talking about his love of America. In a lot of ways, he is still doing the same thing: trying to make people understand.

Yakov has been operating a steadily growing theatre in Branson since 1991, and while the Russian jokes are still his bread and butter, including a few recycled straight from his early stand-up, the show has taken on a much more solemn tone. In the schmaltz of Branson, it sticks out as an honest attempt to use the forum to delve deeper. The first half of the Yakov show is pretty typical: dance numbers, songs, topical jokes about Hillary Clinton and Paris Hilton. But after intermission, it gets serious.

Yakov is incredibly candid about his divorce, as he is about several facets of his life: his unwavering, unabashed patriotism, his political attitudes and his belief in positivity. While comedians are often fond of using themselves as jumping off points in their routines, Yakov’s discussions about the breakup of his marriage dominate his attempts to understand who he is and what he’s become.

The show concludes with a pilot that Yakov is working on, with its first episode taking place on Missouri State’s campus. Yakov has a theory that relationships work best when one person is the “performer” and one person is the “audience;” ergo, if one person likes to drive the car, the other person should be supportive of that and ride in the passenger seat. We are introduced to a couple put together because they match up on every front except that neither one of them can cook. So a date is set up where they learn to cook together. The pilot is rough but has some promise. The focus is largely on practical skills. Laughter can keep us together, but there’s more to it than just that.

In talking to Yakov, it becomes clear as to why he is so unsure about how his message is perceived. This is a comedian who has gotten some rough treatment from the press, notably during his departure from Hollywood in the early ’90s, around the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. But Yakov does have a message, and he knows how that message can get garbled in translation. He’s a comedian, but he is also a businessman who is very sure about what he wants to say and how he wants to be perceived. The pilot is merely a larger vehicle for that.