CU comedy
22 Aug 2004

The Dallas Morning News - HAVANA - For a night's work, José Coll once earned a few bites of a cheese sandwich. Another time it was rice with shrimp sauce, minus the shrimp.  "It's funny now," he said, laughing. "It wasn't so funny then."  Now one of Cuba's highest-paid comedians, he has left those days of hardship behind. He's a member of Havana's hottest comedy act, Punto y Coma (A Period and Comma), and says humorists have more freedom to express themselves now than they've had in years.  "If we told the same jokes 10 or 15 years ago that we tell today, they'd throw us in prison," he said.  Comedians still have to watch their words, walking a thin line between politically acceptable jokes and criticism that is potentially offensive to the socialist government. But they learn to cope.

-	A man tells a doctor he has a stomach problem. "There's something in there," he says. "You should be happy," the doctor replies. "I'm starving."
-	A doctor gives a patient a medical prescription, not always easy to find because of paper shortages. "When you're done with it," the doctor says, "return it to me because it's recyclable."
-	A doctor tells a patient he has to leave. "You're going to have to excuse me because I have to tend to a little old lady around the corner." "Is she in serious condition, too?" the patient asks. "Who said she was serious? Not at all. Her iron is broken," the doctor "What?" the patient asks. "I repair irons. Then on the next block I fix flat tires. I sing, too. I'm training to get into tourism. You know how it is. Life's not easy."

"You work as a humorist for enough years, and you learn what the limits are," Mr. Coll said. "They don't censor us. We censor ourselves."  Performers agree that mocking or ridiculing the political system remains taboo. So is poking fun at Fidel Castro, his younger brother Raul and other leaders of the Cuban revolution. But these limits don't seem to hurt business. Havana's top comedy shows consistently draw more spectators to nightclubs than any other attraction, including some of the popular salsa bands. Comedy shows were part of the night scene even before the 1959 revolution. After Mr. Castro took power, some of the most well-known comics - Guillermo Álvarez Guedes and the late Leopoldo Fernández - settled in South Florida. Others stayed behind and continued telling jokes, helping people forget about economic strife, divided families and rafters lost at sea.

"In truth, all Cubans are comedians," said veteran humorist Moisés Rodríguez Cabrera, 52. "We have to be." He helped found the group Seña del Humor (Sign of Humor), based in Matanzas, about 60 miles east of Havana. "Some of the best humorists are from the provinces," he said. "That's probably because there's not much going on. We're bored. So we sit around coming up with jokes."  Like many comics, he has a second job. He's a professor and art critic at the University of Matanzas. "Humor is intelligent thought," he said. "It gives us the chance to express ourselves."  Many of his fans just want to laugh. And on a recent Monday night, hundreds plunked down 5 pesos, less than 20 U.S. cents, and streamed into the pre-revolutionary Mella Theater in Havana.  Children ran up and down the aisles as their parents fanned themselves with folded newspapers. Soon the lights went out, the audience let out a whoop, and American rock music blared over the speakers.

The first skit spoofed Cuban-style bureaucracy. Mr. Rodríguez, a thin man with disheveled hair and an unruly beard, rushed on stage. "Excuse me, please," he said urgently to a receptionist. "Can I use the bathroom for a moment?" "Oh, honey," she said, rolling her eyes. "That could be difficult." Then she sent him from one office to another. Government workers repeatedly demanded his ID and interrogated him on the exact nature of his business in the bathroom. The dialogue, much of it R-rated, went on for several minutes. Finally a voice rang out: "Lunchtime!" The stage cleared, and the receptionist told the man, now doubled over in pain, "Oh, I forgot to tell you. The bathroom is closed for inventory." He let out a scream.

A second comic group, Komo Tú, (meaning Like You, with the word "como" intentionally misspelled) appeared later and took some jabs at the socialist system. At one point, three performers calling themselves Hipocresia (Hypocrisy), Intriga (Intrigue) and Hermosura (Beauty) gathered around a coffin. A neighbor named Mentira (The Lie) had died and was inside, they explained. It was quite a sight. All three comedians were dressed as women, but the only female was Hypocrisy. Beauty was anything but that. A tall, bony man with hairy legs, he wore a spaghetti-strap dress and slippers. Intrigue was clad in a plain, shapeless brown dress and wore a polka-dot scarf. They sat together on the casket and told tales of other neighbors. They called one Escasez (Shortage), a reference to the scarcity of food in many Cuban households.

"Shortage came to my house and stayed for 15 days," Intrigue moaned. "She was with her little sister, Necesidad (Need). That girl's growing like crazy." As the routine went on, it left many spectators with the impression that the woman in the coffin - The Lie - symbolized Cuba's political system. Said Beauty, "They didn't want to do an autopsy of The Lie for fear of finding La Verdad (The Truth)." But the performance was couched in enough symbolism to take away the sting. And the comedians insisted they weren't criticizing the government. "We deal with social issues, not any political system - socialist or capitalist," Komo Tú member Yasnay Ricardo said. "We do social satire. We talk about the problems of society."

Comedians say finding material for their acts is easy. "That's because what Cubans experience every day is so absurd," Mr. Coll said. "In the beginning, we'd sometimes do a show for a bottle of rum," he said. Things have turned around. His group fetches top dollar - $120 per show - and is booked solid.