By Sean Davidson
“…her latest tour, Beautiful, which on April 4 saw Cho return to the more honest and personal material that marked her earlier years….Cho seems to have re-embraced the best of what made her big in the first place.”
The last time Margaret Cho made the rounds her act didn’t look so good and seemed to be trending downward. The howlingly raw material of her debut I’m The One That I Want and follow-up Notorious C.H.O. had — by the time of Revolution and in particular 2005’s Assassin — given way to a good deal of pandering non-comedy and speechifying that didn’t so much tell jokes as it told her adoring fans what they wanted to hear.
If that sounds like a belated swipe, well, let’s blame it on the lingering awfulness of Assassin and move on to the notable improvements of her latest tour, Beautiful, which on April 4 saw Cho return to the more honest and personal material that marked her earlier years.
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Posts Tagged ‘Reviews’
Eye Weekly
Margaret Cho at Massey Hall
Monday, April 7th, 2008
The Boston Globe
Cho is like the friend who will tell you anything
Monday, April 7th, 2008
By Katie Johnston Chase
“Cho laid her dirty comedy on thick at the Orpheum Saturday night, and the near-capacity crowd ate it up. Cho was larger than life on the video screen above her – all the better to see her masterful facial expressions. She can contort her eyes, her mouth, even her nose into the funniest positions, whether she’s imitating her mother imitating Julia Child or reenacting her horrified self…”
PHOTO CAPTION: The comedian was a master of facial expression at the Orpheum. (justine hunt/globe staff)
Margaret Cho is an interesting mix of empowering friend and raunchy sex fiend. Her current tour is called “Beautiful,” as in “We’re all beautiful,” an uplifting message but not an inherently funny one, which is why she sandwiches her short bits about loving yourself between long streams of genitalia jokes.
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The Rebel Yell
Margaret Cho entertains, shocks at Palms
Monday, March 31st, 2008
By Michael Lyle
Margaret Cho is beautiful.
At least that is what she told the audience, who welcomed her with a standing ovation at the Pearl inside the Palms on March 29.
Of course, it wasn’t her beauty or lessons of being beautiful that captured the audience’s attention of a nearly sold-out theater. It was her comical anecdotes on political issues such as Iraq, sex scandals, prostitution and immigration that induced the entire laugh-filled evening.
For example, Cho had a simple solution for ending the war in Iraq.
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AfterEllen.com
Beauty and Margaret Cho
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
By Malinda Lo
“In a way, Beautiful is a return to I’m the One That I Want, the hit 1999 tour that marked her comeback from the failure of her sitcom, All-American Girl…..She made me uncomfortable, but she also got my attention. That’s why Margaret Cho is so necessary. The sharpest comedy shows you the boundaries of your own tolerance, and pushes them.”
Last Saturday night onstage at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, queer comedian Margaret Cho — now on tour with her new show, Beautiful — recalled going on a radio show where the host asked her: “What if you woke up tomorrow and you were beautiful? What if you woke up and you were blond, had blue eyes, were 5-foot-11, weighed 100 pounds, and you were beautiful? What would you do?”
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Pace Press
Comic Gives a lot More Than a Lesson on Body Image Margaret Cho’s New Variety Show Celebrates Bodies of all Shapes and Sizes
Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
By JACKIE BERG
“There are few comedians who can get away with what Cho easily captures. Her rough-around-the-edges attitude is adorably contrasted by her ability to relate to every audience member with ease.”
“It’s Margaret, bitch!”
Armed, dangerous and flanked by sleeve tattoos, Margaret Cho comes prepared for another battle of the C.H.O. Revolution at The Zipper Factory in her outrageous burlesque-style variety show, The Sensuous Woman.
This particular round of jabs at society’s view of beauty is not a hard-fought victory for Cho in her off-Broadway debut. Her progressive following at the fittingly industrial and raw Chelsea theater is ride or die for Cho. She has the ability to pull an ovation both an undeniably funny rant on Britney Spears’ VMA performance and a theatrical exposure of her bare you-know-what in the finale.
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NY Press
TOUCH ME, FEEL ME: ‘The Sensuous Woman’ Scores in the Erogenous Zone
Monday, October 15th, 2007
By LEONARD JACOBS
“Margaret Cho’s burlesque-cum-variety act is worth every hoot and catcall, not only for her zinger-filled standup, but for the freewheeling sexual demagoguery of the whole enterprise.”
Sometimes ads go up online for writers to review porn films and websites, and you have to wonder what criteria one might use. “The camera work was redolent of a John Ford western”? Or do you draw parallels between somebody’s screaming orgasm and everybody in the movie Network yelling “I’m fed up and not going to take it anymore”? In some respects, The Sensuous Woman begs similar questions. Margaret Cho’s burlesque-cum-variety act is worth every hoot and catcall, not only for her zinger-filled standup, but for the freewheeling sexual demagoguery of the whole enterprise. How, though, do you judge it?
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Timeout New York
“PUTTIN’ ON THE TITS Cho and co bare more than wit”
Monday, October 15th, 2007
By Trav S.D.
One wondered how long it would take the burlesque revivalists to remember that the form is as much about comedians as exotic dancers. It may be a show-business first that, in her new variety show, The Sensuous Woman, Margaret Cho reveals herself to be both; she spins pasties and one-liners with equal aplomb.
Beyond that, she also proves herself to be something of a bizarro ringmaster. It is not a joke to report that this production contains a naked dwarf, a plus-size dancer pulling streamers out of her ass and a woman flaunting a prosthetic penis. That’s a remarkable comedy show when the most normal-seeming performer on the bill is a transgender comic whose routine is largely about lesbian cunnilingus.
While Cho’s ostensible message is a celebration of difference, you don’t feel hit over the head with this lesson—diversity is simply on display. “Funny” is the bottom line. There’s scarcely an act that isn’t as laugh-provoking as it is outré, from a gay rapper named “Lisp” to YouTube phenom Kelly, who sings a techno song about $300 shoes.
Anchoring it all is Cho herself, who opens the show with a hilarious and raunchy monologue about “Miss Larry Craig’s epic search in the men’s room for dick,” and closes it with a fan dance. A couple of segments of Asian-American shtick remind us how far her act has evolved since the early days, when her material was fairly tame and conventional. Those words could never be applied to The Sensuous Woman.
The Zipper Factory Dir. Randall Rapstine. With Cho and ensemble cast.
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