Even as spectators take their seats at the Westside Theatre, where The Other Josh Cohen opened on Monday night, they will see a setting for a modest Manhattan apartment. They also will notice that a shifty-looking individual dressed in black is methodically stripping the joint bare of its contents and furniture.
By the time the show gets going and Josh arrives home to realize that he has been robbed of virtually everything, the audience already knows plenty about this nice, though schlubby, single guy and would-be writer.
That’s what opening numbers of musicals generally are for, and “Only the Beginning,” among other points, neatly reveals how this show features two title figures, both similarly dressed in checked shirts and jeans: One is Narrator Josh (David Rossmer), who happens to be one year older, slimmer, and considerably wiser than his younger Josh self (Steve Rosen), whose troubles and eventually sweet triumphs he wry annotates as they occur.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★ review here.]
Five other performers, all of whom play an array of musical instruments, depict the various available or not women, living or dead Jewish relatives, neighbors, strangers, and other folk—among them no less than superstar Neil Diamond—involved in Josh’s story, which spins around a ginormous check that unexpectedly arrives in the mail from somebody he doesn’t know.
Or does he? Maybe he should find out.
Cleverly written by the Messrs. Rossmer and Rosen, The Other Josh Cohen is a light and lively diversion that’s probably going to keep a smile on your face for its 95-minute entirety. Unpretentious in its style and scope, the musical brightly bounces along from one upbeat song to another. Although the score is filtered through a ‘90s pop sound that’s always easy on the ear, its spruce lyrics and narrative thrust are total musical theater in their able construction.
Meanwhile, propelled and punctuated by the songs, the script briskly deals out plenty of laughs between the hapless Josh’s usually woeful collisions with women, eye-rolling phone exchanges with his loving parents in Florida, and occasional offbeat encounters—did I mention the Darth Vader cameo? And how Neil Diamond materializes to buck up our hero’s flagging spirits? “I see so much of myself in you,” says Neil to Josh. “And not just the chest hair.”
So, yes, expect to enjoy here a wacky little show. Meeting The Other Josh Cohen won’t change your life, but this amiable tuner certainly will give you a dandy time, enhanced by the deceptively casual excellence of the off-Broadway production as nicely staged by Hunter Foster.
A genial Rossmer, who usually strums a guitar or fiddle, and the ingenuous Rosen, whose blushing cheek you’ll probably want to pinch, are agreeably matched as the Joshes. Without detailing the numerous guises they amusingly assume during the proceedings, thanks in part to the wit of Nicole V. Moody’s costumes and J. Jared Janas’ wigs, Kate Wetherhead, Louis Tucci, Hannah Elless, Luke Darnell, and Elizabeth Nestlerode portray everybody else in the story even as they harmonize and provide the music on all sorts of instruments. They make it all look so easy, too, bless ‘em.
Don’t expect to catch The Other Josh Cohen later at some Broadway theater. The show looks perfectly fine at the Westside Theatre, where ticket prices are cheaper, your proximity to the stage is nearer, and a good tristate-type time can be enjoyed without having to suffer the larger tourist element.
The Other Josh Cohen opened November 12, 2018, at The Westside Theatre and runs through February 24. Tickets and information: otherjoshcohen.com
