Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
One of the chief advantages of comedy set to music is that our ears like musical repetition.
We get pleasure out of hearing the same song over and over again, but jokes rarely age well.
Shes Gorgeous,lives on both sides of that equation.
Cohens cabaret-style comedy act has the accomplished warmth and authority of a show that has improved with time.
What can you do about it all but sing!
Cohens act supports both of those readings.
She mocks sincerity, and she mocks herself for wanting to mock sincerity.
She is exhausted by everything and will tell you that with boundless energy.
As a result, her material is like prop comedy, and her idea of selfhood is the prop.
Here, she is onstage for an audience, laughing at how nakedly she wants to be onstage.
She is glamorous and winking at the idea of glamor.
That tear is impressive!
But are we meant to laugh at it or find it moving?
Under the lights a tear looks pretty much the same as a sequin, after all.
Maybe its just another way to add some sparkle to a show?
Sparkle is the whole point.
This is the territoryThe Twist …?
Shes Gorgeousplays inside, and it does that very, very well.
But as Cohen herself hasdescribedit,The Twist …?
Shes Gorgeoushas been largely finished since at least 2019, when she performed it for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
That intervening time had the double-edged result of making Cohens work seem both more broadly influential and less distinctive.
The ground is always slipping around underneath this show, playing with which emotions are real and which arent.
Like the pandemic (which Cohen describes as so random!
), this is not her fault.
If the end result ofThe Twist …?
Shes Gorgeousis that people will want to know what Cohen is working onnow, maybe thats a silver lining.
