In May of 2023, Sarah Silverman’s father and her stepmother died a mere nine days apart.
“They both gave me so much, most recently about an hour of new material, so let’s do this,” the veteran comedian tells the audience in “PostMortem,” her most recent comedy special, now streaming on Netflix.
Many a recent comedy special prove that life’s darkest moments make for great comedy, and “Postmortem” is no exception. But despite the grim-sounding title, the special is perhaps the most heartwarming, loving comedy specials I’ve ever seen, an ode to Jewish family, to beautiful deaths and final goodbyes. If those who die aren’t really in the graves we bury them — and Silverman of course makes jokes about Jewish burial traditions and cremation in this special — then “PostMortem” is also in a way a beautiful encapsulation of the spirt and memory of Silverman’s parents — Donald “Schleppy” Silverman, her stepmother Janice and her mother Beth Ann.
Watching “PostMortem,” laughing and holding (or failing to hold back) back tears, feels almost like a spiritual experience. Silverman’s sister, Susan Silverman, is the rabbi in the family (she officiated Tiffany Haddish’s bat mitzvah!), and her humor and spirit are also in the special. But Silverman, from her own professional pulpit, brings all these three people to life on stage in such a fond and visceral way, and you feel, in less that 45 minutes, like you’ve known them your whole life. Schleppy, who owned a store in New Hampshire called Crazy Sophie’s Factory Outlet and recorded his own radio commercials (one of which is featured after the credits), was full of jokes and chutzpah; sweet, stylish warm-hearted Janice always wore perfectly put together outfits; and filter-less Beth Ann is characterized with her perfect dictions and paint-stained overalls. All three stay with us after the special. And you see all their sensibilities in Silverman herself — Schleppy’s humor, Janice’s warmth, Beth Ann’s radical openness.
All that to say, there are no bells and whistles in this special. The most high-tech moment is when someone throws Silverman a pair of readers from the crowd. We do get to see beautiful pictures of Beth Ann, Janice and Schleppy in the closing credits, along with Silverman, her longtime boyfriend comedian Rory Albanese and her three sisters, who are all prominently featured in the show. But other than that, it’s just Silverman, in her element, feeding off the energy of the crowd and sharing raunchy and hilarious anecdotes that, as always with Silverman’s comedy, are peppered with natural references of Jewish life. Yiddishisms like “tsuris” and “oy” and “tuches” all have central places in the show, as well as bagel brunches, speedy Jewish burials in pine boxes and jokes about being cheap that Silverman prefaces as unfortunately, “bad for the Jews.”
But more than that, “Postmortem” is about the spirit of Jewish family. In the story of Schleppy from his life and his deathbed, viewers will find reminders of fond memories many of us have with our own family, like kvetching about people in fancy cars and expensive watches and kvelling over knowing the person who invented imitation crab. There is so much joy and connection in moments between Silverman and her sisters and parents. There’s also genuinely good advice for those of us with aging parents — the Silverman sisters had their parents record all their doctors appointments and send the recording over WhatsApp (so genius!).
This special is a blueprint for how death can also be beautiful; Schleppy’s death was a peaceful painless goodbye on his own terms. It’s also a very candid rumination on the nature of grief. “There really is no age when you are ready to not have your own parents,” Silverman aptly says in the special. “I miss him so much, I ache for him,” she says of her father, her best friend — before immortalizing him with a final joke in her trademark dirty humor.
