Review by Dan Sinclair
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
With a team and production as highly reviewed as Natasha Roland and Xhloe Rice’s A Letter To LBJ, it almost feels like a redundant exercise telling you what a great show it is. They’ve scooped up three consecutive Fringe First awards and more five stars than you can shake a harmonica at. Five stars, they’re top-notch, get a ticket (pretty well-priced and all). I then want to take this all as an invitation to talk about everything else that normally doesn’t make the cut in a review. So strap in, I guess.
To give you some background, Xhloe and Natasha have been cutting their teeth on the Edinburgh Fringe since 2022, breaking out with …And Then The Rodeo Burned Down, then What If They Ate The Baby? And now comes their most recent (and longest titled) piece, A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson Or God Whoever Reads This First which runs for a stint at the Soho Theatre before moving onto the Fringe this Summer. It follows two Boy Scouts, Ace and Grasshopper as they grow up together in the wilds of small-town America, complete with hijinks, railway tracks, baseball and sickening amounts of blind patriotism. Although never explicitly stated, the two children career head first into the All-American war in Vietnam, supposedly trading one uniform for another.
Xhloe and Natasha are exceptional writers and clowns - they’re Laurel and Hardy’s queer nightmare come true. As a company and a piece of work, there is something uniquely American about it all, something that we Brits just cannot pull off. We have our anti-establishment history and our satire, but it is often too clever and ‘Aha witty witty’ for our own good, whereas Xhloe and Natasha seem to be completely tapped into the rich counter-culture history of America. I struggle to put my finger on why, but it feels authentically American (positive) to its bones: Andy Kaufman (a Canadian, but…), Saturday Night Live, Second City, Aubrey Plaza, even The White Lotus.
All too often, a long title exists because it’s fun to give plays really long titles. I am guilty. But A Letter To LBJ… is steeped in history. In March 1965, The New York Times published an open letter addressed to President Lyndon B. Johnson, signed by several hundred University professors. They urge him to consider the de-escalation of US involvement in Vietnam, ‘What are our goals in Vietnam? Are they just? Can they be accomplished? Are they truly worth what they are bound to cost in dollars and human lives?’ This was published the day before Operation Rolling Thunder began, a campaign that dropped 864,000 tons of American bombs and took 182,000 civilian lives (although the CIA and US Government will give you significantly lower figures.)
There is no shortage of art surrounding the Vietnam War, especially the toll it took on the youth of America. Young boys, blinded by their daily pledge to the flag are led into battle, scared, alone and then buried under a US flag. It’s in the music of the era, the hippie movement, Hair the Musical, and most movies about the conflict (apart from the propaganda ones). Xhloe and Natasha have struck upon something that the others haven’t. Even as you watch them crawl through the mud under heavy gunfire and grieve their friends over a beer, it never tells you what is going on. They keep that small glimmer of hope alive: maybe they’re still playing make-believe at their scout camp? Maybe this is all just a game of cowboys? Therein lies the American Dream baby.
I have to give some top credit to technical designer Angelo Sagnelli, lighting throughout was par for par with the performances on stage. It was subtle, imperceptibly clever and kept the 60-minute piece rolling at a breakneck speed. Sound design sat at the back of your mind, the slight sound of wood as one character mimed picking up a baseball bat, a trickle of water somewhere far off. These are all things that lesser theatre-makers wouldn’t even give a second thought to, it’s mime, you don’t need to hear a hand on a bat - but I’m so glad I did. Gunfire pierced through the intimate upstairs venue as the iconic jungle green/thunderclaps of the Vietnam War covered the walls. And don’t get me started on the harmonicas and Beatles covers. Beautiful.
I’m always up for a fight with someone on whether theatre genuinely has the potential to change the world, or at the very least, change people. It is all too easy for us to praise the goods of theatre, its politics and at its best - its shocking messages. But it’s (almost) always self-selecting, and this is inescapable. Can it change people? With a dollop of pessimism - probably not - but I was recently told to think about how it can instead plant little seeds that will stick with people, and grow back when they least expect it.
As I sat home on the tube and listened to Yesterday by The Beatles, that seed whacked me straight in the heart. This is a piece of theatre that will sit with me for a while. It’s evidence of the immense clowning talent held by Xhloe and Natasha, there’s an innocence, humour and sadness in their work that weighs on you like a lump. But to clarify, it’s also insanely funny, just thought I should clear that up. You might not be able to know them before they blew up anymore, but you can still get on at the next station.
A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson Or God Whoever Reads This First is playing at the Soho Theatre until 29th March
Tickets from: https://sohotheatre.com/events/what-if-they-ate-the-baby-a-letter-to-lyndon-b-johnson-or-god-whoever-reads-this-first/
Photos by Morgan McDowell