What I liked
There was a lot to love about Sam’s performance, stage presence and humor. I loved the breakup of the high emotional drama and the breaking of the 4th wall, to do punny jokes and impressions, I think it kept you engaged in a way, that a straight retelling of the event might have been too much to digest in the moment.
What I didn't like
Not much, I thought it was very well developed, clear headed focused and charming.
My overall impression
My Dead Dad was a very thoughtful, brave, and well developed meditation on what it’s like to not get the family you wanted, but getting the family that you needed.
He opened the show talking about wanting to have a Sitcom style family but instead he portrayed a messy relationship with his dad, someone who was competitive but also volatile. Someone who acted like he knew what he was doing but ultimately was scared and humbled in the face of his own mortality, as we all will be some day. While there was obviously a lot of heaviness surrounding the circumstances of his relationship with his father and untimely death, there was also a lot of humor, lightness and charm throughout Sam’s performance.
One of my favorite early moments was Sam describing his father’s high athletic standards for him, while he described himself as “Husky” and “as a goalie that you couldn’t rely on”. Those descriptions had me dying.
The show really had everything heartening camaraderie, high stakes, harrowing near death experiences and a microwaved potato. But ultimately the show was about a father and son and their mismatched expectations for each other. Sam always wanted a different father and his father seemingly wanted a different son. But as another member of the Dead Dad Club I can attest to, the fact of how much I saw myself in this relationship with my own father as well. We always feel unrequited, unfulfilled even when we can simultaneously experience deep, profound, unfathomable, terrifying love.
