Chatting with Nicaraguan-Canadian comedian Martha Chaves about her upcoming appearance at Yuk Yuks Downtown Toronto all this week had me in stitches all the way through the interview.  Luckily, in between bursts of laughter, I was able to ask her a few questions, and intertwined with her sharp and hilarious comments, I was able to get some straight answers.  Martha has a quick wit, she’s a fountain of knowledge (which she keeps feeding now through Google’s Ivy League University) and she is able to talk about everything– politics, gender issues, the church– without really crossing the line into offending anyone– well, not much anyhow.  The last time I spoke with her was upon her return from Guatemala in 2008, after a long stay with her family.  Talking about her upcoming Toronto performance gave me the excuse to catch up with her and see what has happened to this popular comedian since then.

Martha is a familiar face in the world-renowned Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal, and she has also participated in most of the top comedy festivals throughout Canada.  She is also a multiple nominee of the Canadian Comedy Awards and in 2010 she won the Ottawa Chapter’s round of The Great Canadian Laugh Off, and she was the runner-up in the Nationals.  She’s a regular guest on Laugh Out Loud on CBC radio and also on CBC radio’s The Debaters.  In fact, she will be taping a live performance of The Debaters at the Burlington Performance Arts Theatre on Wednesday, May 29th at 7:00 p.m.

She has always been very outspoken (and those of you who follow her on social media may have noticed how active, honest in her opinions and tell-it-like-it-is she is about the issues she feels passionate about), but she says she has found a strengthening of the political activist in her since she was invited to join Nobel Peace Prize recipients Rigoberta Menchú and Jody Williams as part of the Nobel Women’s Initiative, a delegation who travelled to Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras in 2012.  “It was one of the most important things that happened to me, and it changed the way I see the world today,” says Martha.  It was a shock to the system for her, but her presence, along with her comedy, made the terrible reality they witnessed a little more palatable to the members of the delegation.  Since then, she has had an awakening and found herself being a lot more active with different causes like Idle No More, Occupy Toronto and Zeitgeist Movement, and she also took part in a demonstration, along with Naomi Klein, to help the people who got arrested during the G-20 summit in Toronto.

Being a comedian is her “day job”, and she tries to keep both worlds somewhat separate, although she’ll incorporate elements of her politics and her stance on gender issues and religion as well in a lighter, more entertaining way.  Her main job as a comedian, she says, is to entertain, not preach.  But “I don’t betray my politics to be on their good side, but I also won’t impose my ideals on them.  I usually go with the less controversial material.”  And although she has been somewhat guarded about bringing up her personal life onstage, maybe telling one or two jokes about gay issues, she feels she can be a lot more open now on the subject, especially on the issue of gay marriage, of which she is a staunch advocate.

For the more serious and politically active side of her she has found a different outlet: Theatre, another artistic vein she has become more involved with in the last little while.  She has introduced original work with Alameda Theatre and last year she took part in The Catwalk with Aluna Theatre.  Right now she is working on her very own play, Staying Alive, in conjunction with Soulo Theatre.  She’ll be doing a 10-minute preview of this work at the Soulo Theatre Festival this Friday, May 24, at 7:00 p.m.  She says this is more of an autobiographical piece, with selected passages, where she will talk about her life from her arrival to Canada at the young age of 17, and all the challenges she faced and lessons she has learned along the way.  If it’s anything like her comedy, and with her outrageous, uproarious personality, this is sure going to be one funny work of theatre.

And while you wait for her one-woman show to be ready, you can catch this wildly funny Latina at Yuk Yuks downtown Toronto this week, from Wednesday, May 22 to Saturday, May 25.  Martha will be at Yuk Yuks, London, on May 31 and June 1st and at the Edmonton Pride event on June 13.  Visit her website, MarthaChaves.com for more info and events.