Sam & Dede, or My Dinner with Andre the Giant NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (43)
See it if You love Beckett (+/or Andre the Giant); you enjoy clever dialogue and great acting; want to see a play about an unlikely friendship.
Don't see it if you didn't enjoy "MY Dinner with Andre" or "Breakfast with Blassie" or dialogue driven works. You don't like Beckett or Andre the Giant. Read more
See it if you like Beckett. You appreciate the absurdity of life. You can appreciate the influence of Beckett on the absurdity of life and vice versa.
Don't see it if you don't like two-person theater in a minimal setting in which words/concepts/the human condition are interchangeable metaphors.
See it if you want to see the nearly unbelievably true friendship of the titular gents. Also if you miss or missed the Falsettos staging. Charming.
Don't see it if See it.
See it if you have read, or know something about Samuel Beckett, or like clever character studies.
Don't see it if if you want something totally accessible, or have no interest in the two subjects. Read more
See it if you want to smile and enjoy a great show with great acting and in a tiny theater
Don't see it if you want a big flashy production. This is show is perfect is the space it was in Read more
See it if you like Samuel Beckett, Andre the Giant or if you like strange truthiness.
Don't see it if you like formulaic sitcoms.
See it if Extraordinarily well-acted portrait of childhood by Dave Sikula. Intimate portrait of 2 giants in their field who were able to communicate.
Don't see it if if you prefer a complex plot over complex characters
See it if you want to see a very unusual pairing of two well-known characters engage with each other - inspired by real life stories.
Don't see it if you don’t like minimalist staging, quirky characters and long conversations; not familiar with or dislike "Waiting for Godot". Read more
Critic Reviews (13)
"Dilorio’s lightweight tale is an affectionate tribute...Based on a piece of trivia, the play feels pretty trivial. It’s a skit that outgrows itself. The characters incline more toward caricature and Mr. Sikula and Mr. Averett, cheerful performers both, don’t look or sound like the real men they’re playing, which diminishes the fun...What’s most charming about the piece is the playwright’s obvious enthusiasm for both men and the men’s fondness for each other."
Read more
"A pretty frail premise for a play, and indeed 'Sam and Dede' works overtime trying to spin some kind of dramatic action out of it. Basically, the big idea is that Beckett was an intellectual giant and André was, well, a giant...Not so much a play as a compare-and-contrast essay...An eighty-minute back-and-forth that produces almost nothing in the way of insight or wit...You can learn more about either man by staying home and checking out their Wikipedia pages."
Read more
"Cleverly written, wonderfully acted, and staged with creative simplicity...Playwright Gino DiIorio has taken this factual incident and ingeniously woven it in to a very entertaining 85-minute, two-character biographical play...The bald, hulking and charming Brendan Averett delivers a commanding performance as Andre...Sikula’s performance is a marvelous channeling...A beautiful edition to the theatrical genre of historical personages dramatized in fanciful situations."
Read more
"An adoring memento to the two giants—one literal, the other literary—it portrays...It's littered with references to works by both men, references that both celebrate and satirize...Director Leah S. Abrams really succeeds in bringing the playful banter to life...Dave Sikula and Brendan Averett have great chemistry...There's a lot of humor and love in it, and little else. It's both warm and weird, and it paints an attractive picture of what their relationship may have been like."
Read more
"Both Sikula and Averett provide engaging, often funny, performances that allow us to accept them as two charmingly lost souls, men dominated by their exceptionalism and consequent inability to fit in. Leah S. Abrams's staging—using Eric Ladue's abstract set of movable, different-sized blocks, efficiently lit by Maxx Kurzunski—keeps things moving but wastes too much time on tiresome, actor-performed scene shifts."
Read more
“The very idea that these two people from such wildly disparate worlds might have been friends is certainly intriguing—and in the writing and playing of the piece—wonderfully insightful…The clash of Beckett’s constant uncertainty versus Andre’s clear-headed, blunt way of managing his over-sized life, make for great theater…While the show’s dialogue is occasionally stilted, Averett’s sensational performance keeps the show continually engaging and ultimately revelatory.”
Read more
"None of it digs too deep or anything, but it’s really all the more charming for its relaxed airiness. As it’s a fun little piece, it works as a nice reminder of both how intensely human Beckett was under his abstractions, but also...of how funny Beckett was and is...There’s a pleasant touch of poignancy in all this which is all the more welcome in that the play doesn’t really strive for sentimentality—it’s just kind of there...Well-acted, well-written, well-directed."
Read more
"Conversation is engaging. Clearly playwright Gino Diiorio knows something about both forms of theater...Both actors are fine, but it’s Brendan Averett’s André who captivates. The artist inhabits his character at three stages of life with vocal, bearing and mood change...Director Leah S. Abrams lets Sam be André’s foil (as scripted) without completely eschewing the latter’s personality. She manages to imbue physicality into a play comprised greatly of conversation."
Read more