Cho's new touring show is as up-front as always

by Kaizaad Kotwal

Columbus-Margaret Cho has always been very honest and up-front about body issues, including issues of sex and sexuality. With her new show "Notorious C.H.O." she promises to raise that bar up several notches.

"This show is very sexually and physically expressive, but it is also lighter than my last one," she said.

Cho spoke about the touring show in an October interview from her apartment in the Hollywood hills. She had just returned from two sold-out performances in New York and was soon headed to Phoenix and New Mexico.

On November 8 at 7:30 pm, she will be at OSU's Mershon Auditorium in Columbus.

With All-American Girl in 1994, Cho was the first AsianAmerican to have her own show on prime time television. Her experience with that debacle was less than stellar. Deemed "too Asian and too fat." Cho was pushed off the deep end into a world of desperation, drug addiction and self-destruction.

The sitcom didn't last, but Cho has, with a vengeance. Last year, in a film based on her one-woman show I'm the One that I Want, Cho chronicled her often-painful journey with comedic genius. In the film's final moments Cho proclaims that, "Being ten pounds lighter is a full-time job for me. Well, I am handing in my notice and I am out the door."

Cho now seems more at home with who she is, and her message to be one's self couldn't be louder or clearer to those brainwashed by Hollywood and the mavens of Madison Avenue.

This is exactly where she picks up with her new show. Cho calls the show "very wild" and promises the audience one heck of a journey.

"This show is about self-acceptance," she explained, “and about finding a place of peace within."

Cho has made a lot of fans howl with laughter by doing raucous and screaming parodies of her Korean mother. These imitations, done with irreverance and a deep love, are hilarious to the core.

In her latest venture, her mom is "a strong figure." She also promises a host of new characters and impressions that "the audience will just have to come and see as to who they are."

Even today. Cho agrees that her own personal journey of being comfortable in her own skin is a work in progress. However, she does admit, "that for some strange reason" she is "finding that peace within at a faster rate than others."

"I think, therefore," she continued, "that my goal is to share that with others."

"I am very happy with myself," she concluded, "but I also realize that that is my own choice."

Fans of Cho will also find that her new show deals a lot about her "relationships

Margaret Cho

with gay men and a lot about gay sex.” She has often spoken honestly about how gay men have been her "friends, family and support network for many years" and how she has "chosen to live within the gay community."

Cho developed "Notorius C.H.O." while living in Provincetown, one of the contemporary American gay meccas.

"I got a chance in Provincetown to do a show every night in front of a supportive and energetic audience," she said.

The show is also changing from city to city, she confessed, and particularly in light of the events of September 11. Cho understands that in times like this it is necessary to laugh, and that "in this terror and depression" a show like hers offers people “a sense of healing."

"Notorious C.H.O." will be shot as a film in Seattle and will be released next year, with a CD of the show coming a bit earlier.

I have always thought that female comics are much better than their male counterparts, mainly because women seem to dig deeper for truth. Cho is as real and as truthful as they come. What is amazing about her work is that even though she digs deep within, and takes herself and us, to some very dark places, her humor never falters, her comedy never withers, and her chutzpah never diminishes.

November 2, 2001 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 15

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