Sarah Silverman's tender 'PostMortem' finds humor in the thing 'we're all terrified of'
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There's an art to transforming the worst days of your life into causes for laughter.
In Sarah Silverman's latest standup special, she turns an unimaginable gut punch – the 2023 deaths of her dad and stepmother, just days apart − into punchlines, and her heartbreak into wisecracks.
'I worry that people are going to think it's soft, (but) if anything it's the opposite because it's the hard stuff,' Silverman says, looking cozy in a gray sweater with a bubblegum pink beanie atop her raven-colored locks. 'It's something that we're all terrified of, that none of us can avoid.'
Silverman's father, Donald 'Schleppy' Silverman and her stepmother, Janice, both died in May 2023. Her dad, who she has described as her best friend, had kidney failure, just nine days after Janice's bout with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer came to an end. Sarah Silverman devotes time in the 63-minute 'PostMortem' (now streaming on Netflix), to each of her parents, including her mom, Beth Ann O'Hara, a stickler for enunciation and blunt honesty, who died in 2015. From the stage of New York's Beacon Theatre, Silverman remembers her dad's days as owner of Crazy Sophie's Factory Outlet, his enthusiastic Yelp review for their dentist and the days leading to his death. Silverman shares stories of Janice, 'just the sweetest lady you could ever meet,' and her parents' starkly different reactions to Janice's diagnosis.
Janice's 'reaction is so Janice,' Silverman, 54, says in 'PostMortem.' 'She just goes, 'Well, I'll just do everything you tell me. I'll just do every single thing you say, and I'll fight it.'' Meanwhile, Silverman's dad had 'the craziest' response. 'You just hear him go, 'I'm alone!'' Silverman says. 'Then he goes, 'I'm a widow!''
'As awful as those last weeks were, it was really cathartic to spend, like, a year on tour talking about it,' Silverman tells USA TODAY. The PostMortem tour began Sept. 19 in St. Louis and wrapped in London April 28. Donald and Janice's deaths coincided with the release of her HBO special 'Someone You Love,' in May 2023, after which Silverman needed material for a new hour of comedy. So she pulled out the eulogy she delivered at her dad's funeral.
'When I started doing standup, this was all that I was thinking about,' she says. 'I would get to Largo (a club in Los Angeles) after cleaning out my parents' apartment with my sisters and just unload."
Near the beginning of the tour, it felt 'heavy to get myself onstage and to figure it out,' she says. She had to finesse bits that weren't working. 'And then once I had it together, I was so excited to tell people about my parents every night.'
Silverman and her dad grew closer as she got older. 'He was always really funny, but he was really scary when I was a kid,' she says, remembering his 'screaming out of control. ... He had a lot of rage issues,' but over the years he became 'a very chill, joyful, grateful man.'
In 'PostMortem,' she says family and joy filled Donald's final days.
'We all got into bed with him,' she says. 'It was a great death. We were singing old camp songs. He loved camp. And telling funny Silverman family stories.'
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The honesty with which Silverman shares her stories has allowed her to connect with fans on a deeper level.
'One of my last shows, I think it was New Jersey or something, I could see a woman just losing it,' she remembers. 'And then when the show was over, she couldn't even get up because she was just sobbing.' Silverman called the woman over and the two embraced. 'She had just lost her dad and taken care of him just on her own. She didn't have any siblings,' Silverman says. 'I could feel her tears at my whole side (getting my) shoulder wet.
'Everybody relates to it in one way or another,' Silverman adds. 'Even if they go, 'I didn't have that relationship with my dad,' it seemed to really connect with people, and as a comedian, that's your dream.'
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sarah Silverman's 'PostMortem' standup special: Parents died days apart
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