A LETTER TO LYNDON B. JOHNSON OR GOD: WHOEVER READS THIS FIRST Comes to Edinburgh
Performances run 2 - 24 August.
Drawing on their own upbringings in military families and being taught that the USA was the greatest country in the world, double Fringe First Award winner Xhloe and Natasha's new show delves into the idealised American childhood and the boys it left behind. In an absurdist two-hander influenced by the 1960s and the Vietnam War, two boy scouts directly address the audience, telling stories, playing soldiers and declaring their admiration for current president Lyndon B. Johnson, a hero in their eyes. With the Scouts traditionally known as a way of preparing boys for military service, and Lyndon B. Johnson notorious for putting young men, barely 18, on the firing line, Xhloe and Natasha explore children's innocence and relationship with war using their signature style of clowning, physicality and fast pace. Fitting with Xhloe and Natasha's company ethos centred around queerness and gender identity, A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First reflects on the androgyny of gender traits that society allows boys to have in comparison to when they become men.
A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First will be the third of the duo's shows exploring popular Americana archetypes. Xhloe and Natasha will also be bringing back the Fringe First Award winning What If They Ate The Baby? for a limited run, 2 – 10 August at theSpaceUK. The show is a radical queer exploration of the post-war suburban housewife, told with the company's trademark absurdism, energy, and physicality.
Co-writers and performers Xhloe and Natasha said, "When you're raised as a girl in America, and perhaps everywhere else too, boyhood is this mythic experience tied to nationalism and nostalgia, it made us feel like we were missing out on something. We longed to be treated like a boy, to be let into this club that had been portrayed in American Pop culture since the 30s, scraping your knees, playing ball, and being a good American Boy Scout. Part of growing up for us was realizing this desire is manufactured by the same systems that benefit from the myth that America has fallen from some former time of "greatness". We want to capture the rude awakening of realizing you might not be the good guy, the devastation of losing your religion, it's something we still grapple with."
Xhloe and Natasha are a New York City based, writer/performer company of two that has been in collaboration for over a decade, creating absurdist physical theatre, clown, and comedy content often centring around themes of queerness and gender identity. They have collaborated with companies such as the Tank, Dixon Place, the SpaceUK, The Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, and Art House Productions INKubator. In recent years, their show A Sleepless Play received a virtual production with Occupy The Stage's Women's Theatre Festival and their show Seven Days To The End of The World received a reading through the Company of Fools Reading Series. They are two-time recipients of the Scotsman Fringe First Award for And Then The Rodeo Burned Down and What If They Ate The Baby? which premiered at Edinburgh Fringe 2022 and 2023 respectively.
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