The distinctive theatrical duo who call themselves Xhloe and Natasha are bringing the rodeo to Hell’s Kitchen, in full clown makeup and as full-on Theater of the Absurd.  “And Then The Rodeo Burned Down,” opening today at Ars Nova, is yet another surreal take on an American archetype by Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland, who have been performing together since they met in high school a decade ago, with increasing acclaim over the last four years in both Edinburgh and New York.  The Drama Desk just gave them the Sam Norton Off-Broadway Award for their portrayals at Soho Playhouse last year of two unsettling suburban housewives from the 1950s (in “What If They Ate the Baby”), and a patriotic pair of 1960s boy scouts who grow up into scary soldiers (in “A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First.”) “Rodeo” is actually the first show that got them noticed, winning the first of their three prestigious Fringe First Awards when they produced it at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2022, performing it afterwards in London and then again in Edinburgh, where I saw it last year.

“And Then The Rodeo Burned Down” struck me as a mix of entertaining clowning, comic patter, spectacularly synchronized physical theater, and a provocative if elusive drama that tries to say something about American culture and history.  On second viewing, the production seems even better. I don’t know whether this is because they have spent more time with it, or because I have, but I even found more clarity about what they are trying to say, or at least what in the Sam Hill is going on.

The show begins with Xhloe and Natasha in Western gear each putting on clown makeup, and then together shoveling shit (as we figure out later) while Dolly Parton sings 9 to 5 (‘They just use your mind and they never give you credit/It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it”)  Such energetic moments of wordless movement are threaded throughout the rest of the piece. Soon,  Xhloe turns into Dale, a rodeo clown who dreams of becoming a rodeo cowboy. And Natasha turns into a series of characters, each interacting with Dale, each interaction evidently exploring what it means to be masculine;

first, she is Dale’s shadow (later named Dilly, since he spends his time dilly dallying) who imitates Dale’s every action and would like to be him, or maybe just kiss him;

then Barnaby the Cowboy, to whom Dale aspires, and who treats Dale in much the same arrogant superior way that Dale treats Dilly; and finally, Arnold the Bull, who is my favorite character.

Arnold  is angry at Dale, not least because he’s a bull, and that’s how they are, but also because he’s been treated badly.  Dale tries to calm him;

Dale: I’ve known you since you were a baby
Arnold: Are you my mom?
Dale: No…
Arnold: I just never met her…
Dale: I pulled you out of your mother….I was there when you were born.
Arnold: I was inside my mother?
Dale: What? Yes
Arnold: How did I get in there?
Dale: Um-
Arnold: Were you inside my mother?
Dale: Arnold-
Arnold: So you’re my dad?

One might argue that this comic routine is an oblique effort to be part of the show’s effort to comment on masculinity. But there are more direct ways, some of them non-verbal. A couple of times, Xhloe as Dale wipes his nose with his knuckle. This simple, precisely observed gesture winds up illuminating  the entire macho culture of the American West.

About halfway through “And then the Rodeo Burned Down,” Dale and Dilly are arguing when suddenly there is a blackout.

Dale and Dilly become the performers who had been portraying them (though not precisely Xhloe and Natasha) and the play becomes a meta-theatrical meditation on what it takes to do art (i.e. money.) – except that one of them says it can’t be me5q-theatrical; “meta theatrics are out of the budget entirely.”  The frustration at the lack of funding drives the rest of the play: “It’s so messed up, we work so flippin hard, and put our heads down for so flippin long and all we wanna do is get to the flipping end! I wish we had budgeted for more profanity.”

Except, we also learn at this juncture that somebody burned down the rodeo.(hence the title.) Were the lights shut off because the performers ran out of money to continue, or did the fire at the rodeo shut down the lights 5oo? Or was it both? The play becomes a mystery; who burned down the rodeo? Or a metaphor? Or  meta theatrical, even though there was no room In the budget for it?

And Then The Rodeo Burned Down
Ars Nova through July 2
Running time: 70 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $40 to $75
Written and performed by Xhloe and Natasha
Directed with Tom Costello
Scenic design by Emmie Finckel, co costume designer Christopher Ford, lighting design by Angelo Sagnelli,co sound design by Carson Joenk
Photos by Ben Arons