Comedic duo discusses recent tragedy, new special
There are a few things that one needs to get out of the way when talking about Kenny and Keith Lucas, the pair that makes up The Lucas Brothers.
Yes, they are twins. Yes, they are identical. Yes, they will be running their new special, “The Lucas Bros: A Will to Believe,” Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Dynasty Typewriter.
All of those things need to be established before discussing their style of comedy — a deadpan duo act, where jokes volley back and forth and the subject meanders from pro wrestling and ’90s pop culture to drug legalization, race, ancient philosophy and mortality.
That last topic is especially important to the Brooklyn-based brothers these days. Because another thing that one needs to mention when talking about The Lucas Brothers is that they are grieving. Last month, they lost a close friend and collaborator fellow comic Kevin Barnett, who died suddenly of pancreatitis.
“We’ve known Kevin for what, a decade?” Keith said. “We started doing stand up together in the Brooklyn comedy scene … and we quickly became friends … [Kevin] was a presence in our lives that we never anticipated a not having, so he’s left quite a void.”
When they got the news of Barnett’s death, the twins were preparing a new hour of material — the follow up to 2017’s Netflix special “The Lucas Bros: On Drugs.” Coincidentally, the bits they were writing already dealt with dark themes — what the two former philosophy majors describe as their embrace of nihilism.
“Nihilism means you don’t have access to religion, you don’t have access to any sort of self help thing to get you through life,” Kenny said. “Our particular form of nihilism led us down a more destructive path.”
Even before Barnett’s death, Kenny recalls dealing with depression, substance abuse and how to implement these themes in their comedy.
“With Kevin’s death,” he said, “everything sort of just crystallized, and we sat down, and we wrote out a more cohesive story.”
According to Kenny and Keith, this story will be a deeply personal reflection.
“It’s more or less a story about how we went from having faith in God to losing our faith and becoming a bit more destructive to hopefully restoring our faith,” Keith said. “Our goal is to tell that story in a comedic way, but, you know, we’ll see.”
Other comedians will join the twins Saturday night, including Sasheer Zamata, Brandon Wardell and Quinta Brunson.
“They’re all phenomenal comedians, and we’re sure they’re going to bring their A-game,” Kenny said.
Though the heavy subject matter may seem the opposite of funny, the brothers emphasized that the evening will still be based around jokes — and that they have found comedy and tragedy to not be mutually exclusive.
“In going through what we’ve had to because of Kevin’s death, we found that people laugh to sort of cope with the pain,” Keith said. “We actually believe comedy is equal to sadness, that they’re part of the same mechanism … just presented in different forms.”
Tickets for “The Lucas Bros: A Will To Believe” are $15 on the Dynasty Typewriter website or $20 at the door.