The generals, to put it mildly, can’t take a joke.But the Moustache Brothers make their living mocking fools, including those who wear military uniforms. So they have drawn a battle line in this country’s long struggle for democracy with a small stage that cuts across their cramped living room, site of the three-man comedy troupe’s nightly performance.The military regime silenced street protests last fall by arresting and, in some cases, shooting peaceful demonstrators. That has left dissidents such as comedians Lu Zaw, Lu Maw and the lead satirist of the family, Par Par Lay, to tend the embers of dissent by poking fun at the regime.In the past, the junta that rules Myanmar, formerly Burma, has tried to shut them up too, hoping to intimidate them with prison terms, hard labour and torture. But the comedians are exploiting a loophole in a ban on their act by staying on the attack at home, in English, with biting humor that ridicules the junta as a bunch of bumbling thugs, thieves and spies.The Moustache Brothers, one of Myanmar’s most famous comedic acts, are determined to get the last laugh. “Joking shares the suffering,” said Lu Maw. “That’s what the government is afraid of because jokes are like wildfire. ”Lu Maw, 58, is the middle brother, and since his fractured English is the closest to fluent, he warms up the small groups of tourists who fill the plastic lawn chairs in the brothers’ living room each night.He cracks jokes rapid fire, like a comic machine gun, under the harsh white glow of six bare fluorescent tubes. Often, he riffs on expressions he’s picked up from the folks who buy tickets or while listening to foreign broadcasts on shortwave radio, like: “Bite the dust,” “New bottle, same wine,” and “My brothers and I, we’re skating on thin ice!”The living room theater is on Mandalay’s 39th Street, the Broadway of a-nyient, a centuries-old tradition that combines stand-up comedy, puppetry, traditional music and dance with subtle political satire.Myanmar’s military holds itself up as the indispensable defender of a great culture, so gagging one of the biggest acts still performing in an ancient art form isn’t simple. But the junta did a squeeze and release that same year. It barred the Moustache Brothers from taking their show on the road, and refuses to issue permits to anyone who might want to hire them. But the regime tolerates the comedians’ home theater, so long as they perform in English, for foreign visitors whose opinions the generals happily ignore.As the act’s headliner, Par Par Lay takes most of the heat for the jokes. He has been arrested three times, most recently on September 25, 2007, as he was giving alms to Buddhist monks, who helped lead the strongest wave of anti-junta protests in two decades.He was released from prison five weeks later, while many others arrested are still in jail, including some 25 Mandalay members of jailed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League For Democracy, local activists say.Par Par Lay, 60, was first arrested in 1990 and kept in jail for six months. In 1996, Par Par Lay and his youngest brother Lu Zaw, 56, went to Suu Kyi’s house to entertain at an Independence Day party attended by some 2,000 people, including the US and British ambassadors. Lu Maw stayed at home to guard the fort. The next day they were hauled off, tortured, convicted and sentenced to seven years hard labour, deep in the jungle.The generals freed them July 13, 2001. Par Par Lay’s wife says she couldn’t recognize the thin, wasted man that hard time had made of her husband. “He had no hair — and no Moustache,” Lu Maw quoted her as saying, laughing at the thought. “They are very tough, good comedians. They never gave up — never.”
