Before Karin Babbitt ever gets into the craft of comedy or the shape of a story, she begins with identity.
“I’m a humorist, and I’m a teacher. I’m a second-generation Auschwitz survivor,” she said at the start of our conversation. “So a lot of what I say and do is born of that.”
With decades of stand-up behind her, and a storytelling style shaped by vulnerability, family history and sharp self-awareness, Babbitt returns this month to In a Nutshell at The Sofia in Sacramento with a Thanksgiving-themed tale she promises is both deeply human and funny.
You’ve done stand-up for years, and now you’re moving into storytelling. How does the rhythm change?
It’s more intimate, it’s more honest. It’s way more honest. And you have to be vulnerable. I think people who listen to stories and are interested in stories are people who are really interested in making a human connection, almost like they’re looking for a validation of some kind for their experience. And, in another way, they’re looking for someone who has it much worse than they have, so they can feel a little bit relieved, and then just to laugh at the human experience. So you have to be willing to be very authentic.
How do you ride the line between healing through comedy without trauma-dumping on an audience?
The trauma is like gold coins in my back pocket. It’s very transactional. When I feel the story doesn’t have enough impact, I’ve got this coin in my back pocket. And I use them in the story I’ll be telling for In a Nutshell. It’s not as much of a dump as it is a gunshot — and I mean for it to be a gunshot.
I have a Facebook post right now about what it is like to be dragged out of an apartment and made a prisoner, because that’s what’s going on right now. These are the stories I grew up with. We always had dogs … imagine being a little kid with your puppy, and the men in uniform come and take the dog and throw the dog out into the street. You never see it again.
There are pieces people are not allowing themselves to experience about what is happening. And my mother had this great quote: “There’s no such thing as a huddling mass yearning to be free. There are mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.”
What does it feel like to tell these stories now as a first-generation immigrant and a second-generation Auschwitz survivor, especially with what’s happening politically?
I’m seeing the horrific promise that my mother made — that it would happen again. And it’s happening again. I thought because “Holocaust” was spelled with a capital H, it was so important that no one would ever allow it to happen again.
Then I learned about other holocausts that were only given smaller h’s. Things happening in third-world countries, things happening in impoverished areas here — you realize holocausts are occurring.
Now it is cartoon-like. It is graphic. Fascism has become a graphic novel in our face. All the things I was so sure would never happen again, I am witnessing happen exactly as predicted.
Has addiction recovery taught you anything that made you a better comedian or storyteller?
Yeah, I learned that you had to follow your heart and do your passion and do your dreams and do the dreams you had as a small child, not to let them die. Because the pain of not being authentic to yourself can make you use, can make you miserable.
Is it easier to tell recovery jokes to people in recovery than to tell Holocaust jokes to general audiences?
Yeah, OK, because if I had an audience full of Auschwitz survivors, they would get where I was coming from.
I once did a gig in Wyoming — what a nightmare. It was a fundraiser for a big fancy recovery center. The audience was all family members. They were so traumatized by their addict’s experience. I’m telling these jokes and they’re looking at me like they’re seeing a horrific car accident. It was such an abuse of these people. I was mortified.
With Holocaust jokes — I once did a set at The Comedy Store in the 1980s, all Holocaust jokes, stone silence. Mitzi Shore [the owner] told me I could never tell another one of those jokes again. Total censorship.
Do you believe trauma breeds humor?
I think it’s the only way to survive it.
How has that affected you as a mother? Did you make an effort to try and hide some of the trauma?
They’re going to be traumatized. You can’t act like it didn’t happen. You can’t act like it’s not you. It’s going to affect your children. They’ll notice when you shut off the TV because you’re triggered. They’ll notice the body perspective that’s abnormal. They’ll notice everything. It gets transmitted. And what we are doing to immigrants right now is going to have a life for generations.
What kind of identity issues, growing up Jewish while not believing in God, did your upbringing create for you?
I was completely acculturated for my own protection. But if you liked something, it was Jewish, and if you didn’t like it, it wasn’t Jewish. We only had dachshunds because they were Jewish. I’m the only person in school whose mother had a tattoo on her arm. I’m told in the hallway that I killed Jesus. I’m singing “Away in a Manger” in the backseat of a Ford Fairlane. I end up at Fairfax High, surrounded by kids who grew up with the language and rituals I didn’t have. It’s like I landed from Mars. I clung to the pieces that were stoner or “bad kid” because those, I could grasp. Drugs and theater and comedy — those became my community.
Without giving it away, what can we expect from your In a Nutshell story this month?
What I want the audience to take away is that there is no such thing as unconditional acceptance. And … oh God, it’s so hard to talk about without giving it away. I guess I’ll say it’s like: How do you do Thanksgiving when you have a bird phobia?
Anything you learned from your first In a Nutshell experience?
The “In a Nutshell” people are so extraordinarily lovely. What truly matters to them is the craft and connecting — appreciating other people with a story to tell. My takeaway is that there is a time and a place to tell the truth, and it doesn’t have to hurt.
This story is part of the Solving Sacramento journalism collaborative. This story was funded by the City of Sacramento’s Arts and Creative Economy Journalism Grant to Solving Sacramento. Following our journalism code of ethics, the city had no editorial influence over this story. Our partners include California Groundbreakers, Capital Public Radio, Hmong Daily News, Outword, Russian America Media, Sacramento Business Journal, Sacramento News & Review and Sacramento Observer. Sign up for our “Sac Art Pulse” newsletter here.
By Chris Woodard
