A24’s latest project, Dicks: The Musical, is making long lasting impressions on viewers with its range of cast and comedic humor no one saw coming.
Reprising their roles from the underground stage version (literally it was under a grocery store), Jackson and Sharp star as Trevor and Craig, a pair of self-absorbed business rivals who discover that they’re identical twins.
The two decide to switch places as part of plan to reunite their eccentric divorced parents, played by Nathan Lane (“The Producers”) and Megan Mullaly (“Will and Grace”).
The film, directed by Larry Charles, known for his work on “Borat” and so much more, spearheaded the absurdist brainchild of Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp. The film also gained buzz from the movie’s opening (mid)night birth at the Toronto Film Festival.
With God (Bowen Yang) as its narrator, viewers see the likes of Megan Thee Stallion playing Gloria the no-nonsense boss. These two lost brothers-in-arms swiftly work out their shared paternity and resolve to reunite their long-divorced parents, Evelyn (Megan Mullally) and Harris (Nathan Lane).
Composed by newcomer Karl Saint Lucy (an original collaborator of Sharp and Jackson’s when the show ran at Upright Citizens’ Brigade in New York) and music directed by industry veteran Marius de Vries, the music of Dicks is genuinely thrilling and fun unlike other musicals.
Mayhem and several show stopping musical numbers ensue, as does the introduction of the Sewer Boys, two creatures from the bowels of the New York septic system who look like tiny rat demons in diapers and whose voices sound like garbled gravel (they were operated by the expert puppeteers at L.A.’s re-nowned Bob Baker Marionette Theater.)
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When it came to putting such a project together, Jackson stated, “Josh and I were performing a lot at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. We had a standup show that we would run outside of UCB, but we wanted to write a two-person show together, and we wanted it to be an original musical comedy because we’re both very musically inclined.”
He went on to add “So we somehow discovered that the bones of The Parent Trap are a very easy way to do a two-person show, because we could each play a twin and then each play one of the parents, and then those are the only characters you really need. So that’s the impetus, and then of course it goes far off the rails.”
In regards to working with Megan Thee Stallion, the group said the rapper nailed a large amount of her choreography and overall was a ‘joy’ to work with on set saying she was ‘nothing but kind.’
Jackson mentioned, “When we found out she said yes, my husband was in the other room and he thought I was taking a phone call that someone I loved had died because I kept going, “No! No! No!” Then it was great, because we got to do a much more Megan Thee Stallion pass on the character of Gloria Masters to put it even more in her voice.”
