Margaret Cho rocked the mic – and her burleque bone – at Estrojam in Chicago.
By K. Tighe
An estimated 15,000 attendees flocked to venues around Chicago last week, Sept. 18-23, for the fifth annual Estrojam Music and Culture Festival to see women doing what they do best. E-Jam is no touchy-feely Lilith affair: the events ran the gamut from burlesque to boozing, hip-hop to rock, photography to film.
Margaret Cho lit up the festival with a raucous array of ta-tas, tattoos, and tassels. Many eyebrows were raised when the San Francisco-born comedienne took up belly dancing a few years ago, but this week’s stint at the Lakeshore Theatre proved that Cho has taken the cabaret world firmly by the fans and put together a stellar revue. Featuring seasoned pros like New York’s Dirty Martini and LA’s Princess Farhana, up-and-coming transgender comic Ian Harvie, and members of West Hollywood’s Gay Mafia Comedy Troupe, The Sensuous Woman is an edgier take on a burlesque variety show.
The opening fan dance was not your standard pink and frilly affair, but an irreverent pulsing precursor to the sexual themes of the show set to Peaches’ “Boys Wanna be Her.” Here’s the thing – everyone in the cast was flapping a fan, not just the pretty girls – it was clear that Cho intended to blur some lines. As she emerged from the feathered curtains, the audience went ape and Cho began a well-received stand-up routine with “I’m Margaret, Bitch.” Keeping on the current event tip, the comic called out the critics of Britney’s VMA performance, ascribing the commentary on the pop star’s weight to “a symptom of a diseased mind.” Going on to vividly and hysterically describe that fateful day in an airport bathroom for Sen. Larry Craig, Cho introduced her show as “Like Donny and Marie – but with an all-tranny chorus line.”