Heart surgery might not sound like a natural subject for a musical comedy, but in “Broad Strokes,” Cat Cohen’s effort to turn her medical trauma into comic turns and tunes gets an assist from the true story. She swears her cardiologist was actually named Dr. Love, and that he repaired a condition known as PFO, a literal hole in her heart. So, in one of the seven original musical numbers in the show, Cohen sings: 

“Why not let Dr. Love fill the hole where my heart should be
It won’t be the worst thing a man has ever done to me.”

And that’s not all: To avoid opening her chest for the operation, the surgeon accessed her heart through an artery in her groin. “I’m like, ‘Doctor Love, you’re telling me you gotta go through my groin to get to my heart? I bet you say that to all the girls, you dirty dirty dog.’”

Over almost a decade, in cabarets and on Netflix, Cohen has gained an increasing following as a singing comedian, her comic persona that of a self-obsessed if self-denigrating millennial (“Boys never wanted to kiss me/So now I do comedy…I need you all to look at me, look at me, look at me,” she sang in her first Netflix special in 2022.) She was about to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023 when, at age 30, she was diagnosed with a stroke – probably caused by the congenital heart condition. Out of this experience, Cohen has fashioned an hour-long solo show that she brought to Edinburgh last year.  “Broad Strokes” now marks Cohen’s Off-Broadway debut. It’s often funny, sometimes bawdy, occasionally startling. But, for all of director Alex Timbers’ effort to dress it up as a full-fledged work of theater, “Broad Strokes” doesn’t really go any deeper than a Fringe-style standup/cabaret, and Cohen, for all her wit and talent, doesn’t break out of her comic persona.

Although she eventually details her medical experiences, many of her songs and much of her patter feels almost randomly autobiographical. She tells us that a casting director saw her type as “you’re just like a normal girl” – which insulted her.

“Yes, I am a straight white girl with brown hair but, but, but sometimes cartoon porn works on me. How normal is that, fuckos?”

This idea of normality becomes something of a theme, or, rather, a shtick; she yearns for it when she becomes sick. 

As funny as she is, and for all her supposed oversharing – talking about her period, and sexual practices with her boyfriend – her string of one-liners began to feel like a way to avoid intimacy and vulnerability rather than explore it. It’s as if she wanted to make the audience feel as if we were getting our money’s worth, and the only way she felt we could do so is by laughing. Broad strokes indeed.

“They wheel me into the operating theater for the main event–– not the kind of theater I had in mind. Honey it’s no Lucille Lortel!” 

The stage of the Lortel certainly stands out in this production.  Derek McLane has created an elaborate gothic set with dark velvet, chandeliers, and candles; Kelsey Randall’s glamorous gown could fit with either Rocky Horror or Six. Jake DeGroot’s lighting design is so interactive  —  single lights here and there flashing on and off on hair-trigger cues as if in conversation with Cohen — that it feels as they’re part of an ensemble.  

Cat Cohen: Broad Strokes
The Lucille Lortel Theater through September 25
Running Time: Approximately 65 Minutes with no intermission
Tickets:  $49 to $130
Directed by Alex Timbers
Scenic design by Derek McLane, lighting design by Jake DeGroot, sound design by Cody Spencer,  costume design by Kelsey Randall, music supervisor & orchestrations David Dabbon