The comedian Cat Cohen has always been a bit of a horror show.
Adopting a flamboyantly superficial, fame-hungry persona, she is the kind of narcissist who says as an aside, “I’m engaged to a guy named Josh or something.” Or turns obliviousness into punchlines. “One of my friends said I’m too selfish to have kids,” she says, “but I don’t care what anybody thinks. I’m going do what I want to do when I want to do it.”
So it makes a certain kind of sense that the set of her hectically entertaining new production, “Cat Cohen: Broad Strokes,” is decked out in candles, chandeliers and fake stone walls from a Victorian gothic. In this haunted house design by Derek McLane, Cohen makes an entrance looking like a millennial Bride of Frankenstein, singing a moody “By the Sea” (the music is by Cohen and David Dabbon) that evokes “Sweeney Todd.”
This new show is a departure for Cohen, a ratcheting up of ambition for one of the most charismatic musical comedians of the past decade. Cohen, who has built a devoted following through whirligig satirical performances in intimate rooms like Club Cumming and Joe’s Pub, is shifting from a stripped-down cabaret aesthetic to a flashier theater of the macabre. You can feel the stylistic imprint of Alex Timbers (“Beetlejuice”), whose busy production includes gusts of smoke, dance breaks and glittering atmospherics (Jake DeGroot’s lighting is its own cartoonish fun) and a multitude of sound effects to accent Cohen’s jokes.
The biggest pivot here is a bit of a fakeout. In a move hinted by the title, Cohen tells us that she had a stroke. “Isn’t that so creative?” she says. “So ahead of the curve. So forward thinking. A stroke at 30, I’m disrupting the industry.”
The real joke here is Cohen sets out to tell an earnest confessional story of facing down death, only for this to become an afterthought to the real hero’s journey, grappling with the demon really haunting her: a sneaking suspicion that she’s kind of basic.
With severity in her voice, she tells a story of a casting director describing her type as “a normal girl.” She has clearly never recovered. Her insecurity is that she might not be a fabulous New York diva but the kind of person who knows how to use an air fryer. Maybe an early stroke is eccentric enough to save her.
Cohen is following in the footsteps of comedians like Cole Escola (“Oh Mary!”) and Jacqueline Novak (“Get on Your Knees”), who also went to the Lucille Lortel Theater to try something more thematically coherent and theatrical. Cohen is taking a big swing here. Does it pay off? At times. This escapist, overstuffed toy box of a show moves like a roller coaster. And Cohen performs like a solicitous party host, constantly checking in (“Listen,” “Stay with me”) and never letting things get heavy without a quip undercutting its weight. (Even a lyric about getting raped is followed by a comic sound effect.)
But there is so much going on that it doesn’t feel quite as loose or personal as her earlier work. And to the extent it does, she’s working on old themes. While her taste may run to “Love Island” and Taylor Swift, Cohen need not worry about being normal. An undeniable creature of showbiz, she finds unlikely comedy in quirks of language or physicality. One of my favorite jokes is her trying to stop an eye-roll only to turn it into a performatively pensive pose.
In a superb gag, she describes the skeleton key of her personality as being “young for my grade,” making a persuasive case that this might be more determinative than family birth order. I could see why embracing Broadway theatrics might be a way to upgrade. But there are enough tender moments in her work to make one wonder what would happen if Cohen committed to vulnerability, embracing the confessional mode of the kind of show being spoofed.
What distinguishes Cohen is the showmanship of her songs. Not many artists her age have as big a catalog of genuinely funny ones. But music is the most emotional of art forms. And she has changed registers to something more searching, even sentimental (see “Upstate,” an older, moving tune that has anguished views on being basic). You see this in one of the best of the night, “Hypochrondriac’s Anthem,” about how getting sick can be vindication.
There’s the usual self-deprecation here, but Cohen sings with a deeply felt sincerity that cuts through the jokes, hinting as something else. “Worrying is always worth it,” she says with conviction, eyes unrolled. “I only do it when I don’t feel perfect.”
Cat Cohen: Broad Strokes Through Sept. 25 at the Lucille Lortel Theater, Manhattan; lortel.org. Running time: 1 hour 5 minutes.
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