BURMA LETTER: Burma's most famous satirists seem resigned to live off the fame earned from prison and government censure
BURMA OFFERS precious few outlets for dissent but the country’s comedians have been bravest. However, the most famous, Mandalay’s celebrated satirists the Moustached Brothers, appear resigned to living off the fame earned from prison and government censure.
Hearing I was from Ireland, English-speaking brother Lu Maw, who sports a grey horseshoe-shaped moustache, enthused about Frank Carson.
Lu Maw and his brother Par Par Lay credit the Northern Irish funnyman’s campaign with other western comedians for getting them out of jail.
Locked up for seven years for parodying the country’s military government during a private show for jailed Burmese democrat Aung San Suu Kyi, Lu Maw’s bulkier brother Par Par Lay, along with cousin Lu Zaw were released after comedians like Carson and Eddie Izzard embarrassed the regime with TV campaigns and vigils outside the Burmese embassy in London.
Par Par Lay did jail time again in 2007, after joining protests against the government’s inaction after devastating cyclone Nargis.
Just before the 8.30pm performance we sipped hot milk tea with men wearing traditional wrap-around longyi skirts, their wives' faces whitened by the thanaka cream squeezed from tree bark to protect skin. Off limits to locals, the brothers' skits are performed in English in the front room of their simple Mandalay home. Their routine, a curious mix of satire and vaudeville in the Burmese A Nyeintstyle of slapstick and dance, is well practised.
Imprisonment has made the Moustached Brothers more must-see than any Mandalay tourist site for the small groups of mostly independent travellers who make it to this one-time Burmese capital. The brothers are aware of their celebrity, judging by the scrapbook of clippings from the world’s press passed around an audience seated in a semicircle of timber chairs. Despite the breathless ubiquity of the word in those press clippings, there’s nothing very “underground” about the moustached troupe: though in an off-centre residential part of town, wedged between a tea house and a pharmacy, their home theatre is easy to find: there’s a giant printed sign over the front door announcing the “Moustache Brothers” show.
Lu Maw opened with jokes about Chinese merchants, who he says, sell electricity to locals. He means the petrol-driven generators, made in China, which light much of the city which suffers chronic power shortages. There follows similar skits about the cheap ubiquity of Chinese goods in Burma, hauled over the border by ethnic Chinese businesspeople who dominate local commerce.
For sure it’s more entertaining than the humourless state-sponsored shows on national TV, but lately the brothers have really been trading on past glories. Perhaps conscious of his limited, idiom-peppered English, Lu Maw recycles the same material, judging by internets posts about the show from several years ago. After several lewd references to her night-time routines, his wife appears in medieval Burmese attire to perform traditional dances.
The brothers take €5 a head from tourists for a 90-minute show – a capacity crowd of 10 yields a small fortune in local terms. True, they'd do better if they weren't banned from public performances. The brothers come from a long line of A Nyeintperformers, a travelling family troupe once well rewarded by villages and wedding parties for anything-goes show of humour, dance and satire.
Moving with an ancient tin microphone against walls hung with traditional Burmese marionette puppets, Lu Maw holds up white boards painted with English words that leave no doubt to his meaning: “MI5”, “MI6” and “KGB” refer to pervasive police surveillance and harassment of dissenters in Mandalay. On another board, “Philosopher’s Stone” connects Burmese past kings with today’s rulers – the generals’ dependence on fortune tellers is well known.
More sinister are the words “Opium”, “Heroin” and “Aids” painted in different colours on the same board. Lu Maw points to “Prostitute” and for several moments there’s no comedy as he explains how poverty and bad governance have pushed Burmese women into prostitution.
The self-confessed “jailbird”, Par Par Lay’s piece is brief and easy: he flexes muscular, chained arms while holding a board that reads “Par Par Lay Arrested 25th September 2007” while Lu Maw, behind his back, mimicks his handcuffed hands.
Later, Burmese cigars are handed out before the show rolls back into vaudeville.
In an explanation of the Burmese marionette tradition Lu Maw’s sister comes out in the get-up of a medieval prince, her satin outfit crackling as she dances and swings.
After closing with repeated invitations to film and photograph the show – international coverage, they bet, will keep the troupe out of jail – the brothers sell $5 T-shirts emblazoned “if you haven’t seen us dance you can’t say you’ve been to Mandalay”. They also offer over-priced marionettes, promising that the takings will go to the families of political prisoners.
The brothers are clearly comfortable: Par Par Lay bought a black market air ticket to fly to Beijing during last year’s Beijing Olympics. It’s a comfort which grates with the rickshaw men who pedalled us home. Complaining of the Moustached Brothers’ lack of hospitality for rickshaw men who bring them paying customers, the driver says what was pure political courage has turned into financial gain: “now they’re businessmen, they’re making money.”