Will Reynolds says: ‘An artist processes his life in public so that others can process theirs in private.’ In Sugar Daddy (produced by Alan Cumming and Billy Porter along with Sally™ of Drag Race UK and Olympian Gus Kenworthy), Sam Morrison offers up the devastating loss of his long-term partner, Jonathan, to COVID-19 in 2021, and his post-mortem diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes, in a laugh-out-loud, bawdy, sexy, touching show.
A comedy about grief, you say? Does it work?
Damn straight it does. Wait… I mean, damn gay it does!
Sam Morrison invites us to his grief group, where death, laughter and sex are intimate friends. He knows us well and warns us of what is to come: some of us will be quiet because we find the show too bawdy, some of us will laugh a little too loud from embarrassment or discomfort, and the rest, the group I personally belong to, the Irish ones, who find death hilarious.
On the small stage, adorned with a dock, tall grasses, and six Bible-toting church pews, Sam deftly takes us from Provincetown to Brooklyn to grief group, through good times, scary times and moments of incredible vulnerability. He confesses to being an ‘anxious, ADHD, asthmatic, grieving, gay Jew’, and we get a little bit of all of these.
The show starts with Sam sitting alone on stage as the audience enters – a vulnerable position. He is waiting, almost as if he is deciding what and how much to share with us. He starts, and whenever he goes a bit too far or becomes disingenuous, he is interrupted by his own voice, on god mic, that steers him back. Aware of all of us voyeurs and yet, needing us to witness his loss, he won’t do the death scene – not yet, not when his pain could be monetised for content.
For me, as a former New Yorker living in London, I felt like I got a taste of home, from my days going to bars near Christopher Street. The stories of risk-taking (going to Provincetown to stay in a hammock, during a hurricane), finding the hottest daddy in town (big belly, older) to COVID giving him the chance to move in with Jonathan and fall in love, we ride the waves Sam describes as ‘cacophonous’, over and over. The highs, the lows; the silliness, the sadness; the absurd and the moving.
I particularly love the irreverence of this show, the performer and the writing. ‘Death is like an orgasm, very awkward in public, and girl, you shouldn’t be laughing.’ But we are laughing, and it’s this laughter that allows us to be fully human, that allows us to witness Sam’s pain, that allows us to process our own losses in the safety of the theatre.
So, thank you, Sam. For an opportunity to normalise these conversations, to share this very human experience, and for making it a very enjoyable night at the theatre.
Sugar Daddy is running until the 4th April at Underbelly Boulevard Soho
Get your tickets at underbellyboulevard.com
Words by Rachel Fowler
Photography by Mark Senior
