A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First: Interview with Performers and Playwrights Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland
“A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First” is an absurd new play by Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland who are both writers and clowns who have won the Edinburgh Fringe First Award three times.
“A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First” is rooted in 1970s America and draws parallels between Boy Scouts and Vietnam soldiers — groups that both hero-worship current president Lyndon B. Johnson. Themes such as nostalgia, innocence, and war prevail and the show also manages to throw in some clowning.
Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland recently discussed their work and more via an exclusive interview.
This is journalist Meagan Meehan. Below are my questions. Please ensure that the answers are original to make the piece more interesting and promoted by Google.
Meagan Meehan (Q): How did you discover your talent for theater and how did that lead into writing shows and clowning?
Xhloe Rice (XR): We both grew up in theatre, we were lucky enough to fall in love with it really early in life, we danced, we did theatre camp, but after we met in high school we realized we had a lot of shared opinions about theatre and art and what we wanted to do with our futures. We started by writing sketches and skits, little comedy routines we’d beg our teachers to let us perform, in college we got into long form theatre. The more plays we read the stronger our opinions grew and the more we wanted to write.
Natasha Roland (NR): The clowning came kind of accidentally, we were both really physical performers with an appreciation for slapstick and exaggerated comedy, it was in college that we really sharpened our awareness of clown and used it as a tool, we think it’s at the base of who we are as creators, so clown always sneaks its way into our work.
MM: You have worked together since high school, so did you ever imagine that your friendship and partnership would lead to the kind of success you’ve achieved?
NR: I think the humble answer is that we could have never imagined it, but we were so starry eyed and even a bit naive in high school we’ve always dreamed really big.
XR: Our high school selves would be thrilled to hear how far we’ve come, but they’d maybe even be like “I told you so, I knew we would keep doing it.”
Q: How would you describe the style of your work and why do you think it resonates with so many audiences?
XR: We describe our work as absurdist clown physical theatre, often inspired by archetypes of Americana. It’s fast paced, intricate, movement based, genre defying theatre. On the one hand, we’ve seen that periods of political unrest cause a rise in absurdist theatre, I think to an extent people crave absurd theatre to both escape or reflect what we’re living through.
NR: I also think people are drawn to the way we make sure our work is ambiguous, absurdism really helps with that, it’s the audience’s job to fill in a lot of blanks. I think audiences almost like doing that work, and it makes the stories we’re telling more personal.
Q: Why did you decide to base this most recent work in 1960s America and how much historical research did you do in order to add accuracy?
NR: We were inspired by movies that carry a lot of nostalgia, especially about the period in time between WW2 and the 80s, a lot of pop culture represents this time period as “the good old days” without acknowledging how difficult that time was for a lot of people, we found it compelling to use the form of the feeling of nostalgic movies about the 60s and subvert it.
XR: When we decided to write about the 60s, we only knew what we had learned in school, but during the writing process we did a ton of research, listened to interviews, watched videos on Vietnam, and reading about LBJ’s presidency. The show itself isn’t meant to be an educational lecture on the 60s but the details influenced the script and is evident in the show if you’re looking for it.
Q: What’s your favorite moment in this play and why?
NR: My favorite moment is a scene where my character watches LBJ go by on a train in his hometown. It’s fairly early in the show, but it’s one of the first times I can really feel the audience leaning into the story, the staging is minimal, with just sound and lights and Ace (my character) guiding the story, a really simple story feels super special.
XR: For me it’s got to be the end of the show, there’s a sequence where we’re in the jungle when a flash flood overtakes us, by this point in the show the audience has acclimated to the storytelling style, they care about these characters, and you can feel it in the room and see it on their faces. Without spoiling too much, there are elements of tech and design we hold off on until this point in the show, it’s such a fun moment to connect with audience and get to see their reactions.
Q: What do you hope audiences take away from this overall performance?
XR: For us this piece is a lot about how dangerous nostalgia can be, and how no one is exempt from biases they were raised with. We want people to walk away thinking about their relationship to nostalgia, recognize where they maybe have rose colored glasses on, and to have an appreciation for a lot of the conflicting things about American identity.
NR: We also hope they walk away with an expanded sense of what theatre and clown can mean. I walk away from my favorite shows inspired to create.
Q: What is some of the best feedback you’ve gotten about this show so far?
XR: It’s most meaningful when people from the generation that lived this give us feedback, we’ve been so touched to hear that people have been moved by our show who lost people in this war, or even fought in it. We’ve had a few Vietnam vets see the show and it’s such a joy when they resonate with it.
NR: And when they’ve corrected us on things, we appreciate that just as much, the show is ever changing.
Q: You have previous pieces about 1950s housewives and rodeos being burned down…so what were the inspirations behind those plots?
NR: We’re fascinated with the way certain archetypes become staples of America, the housewife, the cowboy, these identities get turned into caricatures through years of exaggeration and we get to use clown to comment on and play with this exaggeration.
XR: We also are both such visual people, so we get inspired by aesthetics like the 50s kitchen and or the Western Rodeo. We started there and used the form to inspire the plot.
Q: Be honest, out of all the work you have produced, do you have any favorite piece?
XR: Unfortunately the most cliche answer is true here, with the amount of time, energy, love, (and sometimes torture) that goes into each of these pieces, it is impossible to pick a favorite, “A Letter to LBJ” is my favorite because I get to connect directly with audiences through direct address, “What If They Ate The Baby” is my favorite because of the way it plays with language, and “And Then The Rodeo Burned Down” is my favorite because of the way the show’s form changes as it goes on.
NR: Every time we return to an old piece we get to be delighted and reminded about why we love to do it.
Q: What other projects are you working on right now and/or what themes might you tackle in future works?
NR: We’re headed back to Edinburgh Fringe this August with all three of our Fringe shows, it’s a first for us, to not bring a new show to Fringe and to do 3 shows in rep.
XR: We’re also always developing new ideas, exploring other historical American images, we’ve floated ideas like sailors, astronauts, carnies, the Boston tea party, the Wright brothers, the list goes on and gets more and more absurd.
NR: A lot of our work is in the round, and we’re excited to expand and experiment with a traditional proscenium set up and how we can use it strategically.
Q: What are your ultimate goals for the future and is there anything else that you would like to mention?
XR: Our ultimate goal is to be able to keep doing this with a bigger platform. It’s in both of our blood to always be creating so I don’t think we’re ever going to stop developing new work, but we want to be able to share our shows with as many people as possible, especially to people who don’t usually have access to this type of theatre or theatre at all.
NR: In the meantime, we’re pursuing publishing some of the text of our plays, expanding our team, and applying to grants and programs that help to make what we do sustainable. We dream of being able to develop shows, perform, and support ourselves consistently, we’re not there yet but we’re so excited with how far we’ve come so far.
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Photos credited to Morgan McDowell.