Cho Biz

Margaret Cho satisfies that need we all have to watch and listen to a short, tubby, heavily tattooed Korean-Ameri-can woman talk trash. I mean real trash…no euphemisms allowed. She was, in a word, sen-sational. Her new off-Broadway “event,” The Sensuous Woman, was less so but as one of my companions put it, there was never a moment of the 90 minutes that I didn’t have at least a smile on my face. Mostly it was in guffaw mode. The show is not all stand-up Cho comedy; far from it. Sensuous women are celebrated in all their guises except, that is, those whose bodies are idealized by most of America, if not the world, for the required curvaceousness, blondeness, blandness and lack of any real talent. To put it bluntly, the stage at The Zipper Factory is populated by the fat, the short, the gender confused, the gender outrageous and the Korean. We saw a lot of almost bare boobs (tassels atwirl) and butts clad (male and female, sometimes in combination) in the expected thongs accompanied by some unexpected songs and the discarding of quite a bit of garb; along with Cho's well-known gift of gab. We also saw, and heard, some really far-out weirdness and sometimes it was just so damned silly you couldn’t catch your breath. The stuff that didn’t work (Dorothy from Kansas stripping down to glittery, ruby slippers) is still in the nice-try, needs-work, category. But, overall, the evening was just terrific.

The Zipper Factory is a catch-all entertainment venue. I met my friends at the modern, sleek bar near the entrance, after which we repaired to the funky, spacious, double-floored restaurant where we dined on nicely presented, nicely served fiddled-with American cuisine. After dinner we were directed to the back of the room where we made a sharp left into a high ceilinged smoke-filled area (don’t be alarmed, the smoke was faux…manufactured from a machine) with a horseshoe bar and high volume vocalism competing with equally high volume music. From there we took another left and made our way to our seats in the oddly shaped seating area of the theater. Again, the word funk comes to mind. This venue was also filled with smoke but it was just for theatrical effect and it dissipated before curtain. The theater’s décor borders on cheesy and tasteless but it was absolutely appropriate for the show to come.

Not that The Sensuous Woman was cheesy and tasteless but, oh well, come to think of it, a very high percentage actually was. The one serious theme of the evening is a universal one; that is, recognizing and accepting our differences and, in this show, making fun of them and exhibiting them without shame with (upon occasion) the glitter that such an endeavor requires. Not that audiences in New York require hearing this gospel and it’s doubtful those that it would benefit, if they could actually understand it, would attend anyway. But we, the totally converted, get the benefit of the attempt. And the guffaws therefrom.

By the way, I sure do like Maker’s Mark manhattans (my current ever-changing alcoholic beverage of choice) especially if they seem to get slyly replenished before you get to the cherry. In thinking it over, that might be yet another reason why I thought The Sensuous Woman was so hysterical. And, of course, sensuous.