Walking into the packed main room of The Comedy Club on State Street for the first time could intimidate some comics. For Margaret Cho, though, intimidation isn’t a part of her act. She walked through the crowed with determined confidence before heading on stage.
The crowd cheered and shouted her name as she walked up to the corner stage. Once she assessed her bearings, she began, easily eliciting laughs from the crowd. Cho helped to open Madison’s Comedy Festival with two nights of shows at the club. With the help of Australian comic Jim Short, Cho revved up the crowd that packed into the underground club.
Cho’s comic style is one that rarely shies away from profanity and vivid descriptions of genitals, but this only adds to her comedy. As a comic who has traveled across the world to show off her material, Cho’s background as a child of Korean immigrants and a queer woman allows for her to create a relatable feeling during her performance.
As a comic who’s known for discussing topical issues throughout her shows, Cho opened up about the loss of her comic parents, Robin Williams and Joan Rivers. While both somber events, Cho’s ability to make light of even serious events helped her to show that even though the deaths affected her, the memories of her surrogate parents will keep them alive in her memory. She also discussed her messy divorce from her husband who is battling drug addiction, but shared stories of how she knew that she had to get clean from prescription drugs.
A main theme of the early part of her show was the violence that queer individuals and women face in today’s world. Her disgust was easily understood, and the crowd erupted into thunderous applause when she suggested an anti-Boko Haram platoon, containing Michelle Rodriguez, Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King.
In the second half of her performance, Cho moved onto discussing herself as both Korean and bisexual. Cho describes herself as a “fag hag,” but dislikes the term and used a slew of sexual jokes to elaborate on her relationships with women and their vibrators. After showing off her various tattoos, and describing what her mother thinks of twerking, Cho brought up the fact that she’s planning on having a child.
One of the funniest moments of her show was when she called out men in the front rows of the audience and asked them if, first, they’re gay, and second, if they’ve ever been with a woman. After discerning this, she proceeds to show the gay men in the audience an example of gay men performing oral sex on a woman.
Cho is a comic who can both personalize her material and include the audience in the overall performance. Her longevity in performing allows for a slew of older material for newer fans to catch up on her work and allow them to discover her talent. Cho’s mannerisms, overall comic expression and timing help to cement her as one of the leading stand-up comics in America today.
