Dale (Xhloe Rice, right), a rodeo clown, solicits tips about professional advancement from rodeo-headliner Barnaby the Cowboy (Natasha Roland) in And Then the Rodeo Burned Down at Ars Nova.
And Then the Rodeo Burned Down is New York City’s third exposure to the antic stagecraft of Xhloe and Natasha, who write, perform, co-direct, and design and recently snagged major prizes in three consecutive years at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. These Gen-Z collaborators (full names Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland) deploy their well-honed professional skills—acting, clowning, dance, acrobatics, and stand-up—with astonishing energy and rugged charm. As writers, their stock-in-trade is a skeptical reassessment of myths about American history. As performers, their mission is to challenge those entrenched falsehoods in a style that’s more imagistic than analytic and informed by Theater of the Absurd.
Dale encounters Arnold the Bull (Natasha Roland) in the Beckettian tragicomedy And Then the Rodeo Burned Down.
And Then the Rodeo Burned Down premiered in 2022 and was Xhloe and Natasha’s earliest appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe. Their subsequent Fringe entries—What If They Ate the Baby? (2023) and A Letter to Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First (2024)—arrived in New York ahead of Rodeo, both playing Off-Off Broadway at the Soho Playhouse during the theater season that has just ended. With Rodeo, the artists have moved up to Off-Broadway under the auspices of Ars Nova, the adventurous company responsible for premieres of Beth Wohl’s Small Mouth Sounds and Dave Molloy’s Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.
The play begins as a backstage glimpse of rodeo life. This, says Dale the rodeo clown (Xhloe), is “the best place in the world.” Dale declares he “loves” the rodeo and is “lucky” to be there; his job is “really cool and really hard and like not as easy as it looks.” He aspires, however, to become a cowboy, despite indications that rodeo clowns have little or no hope of upward mobility.
Xhloe and Natasha have received The Scotsman’s Fringe First Award for Outstanding New Writing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival three seasons running (2022 to 2024). Photographs by Ben Arons.
The cowboy Dale has observed at closest range is Barnaby (Natasha), a rodeo headliner who’s one of the few denizens of the place not living in misery and squalor. From his contact with the cruel, manipulative Barnaby, Dale has developed a self-abnegating mantra: “Put your head down and pay your dues.” Dale’s smiley face and platitudinous blather seem to mask what he really feels about the rodeo and the shabby way he’s treated there.
A young bull known as Arnold (Natasha) contradicts Dale’s “best place in the world” assessment by disclosing the perspective of the rodeo livestock. Except when led to the arena to be wrangled by the cowboys, Arnold is confined to a cage without sufficient room to move about or escape his accumulated excrement. Arnold’s sole diversion is fantasizing about a door in the arena that might release him from bondage and give him access to a larger world. “I don’t … know what’s outside the door,” Arnold admits. “It could be spikes, or knives, or knives with spikes. I’d still go through [the door]. I’d run through it.” Worse off than the livestock are The Shit Shovelers (played by Xhloe and Natasha in several scenes). They occupy the bottommost rung of the rodeo’s social ladder, clearing the arena of the livestock’s blood and dung.
“In New York, ‘Rodeo’ doesn’t look or feel like a Fringe Festival attraction. ”
The script’s narrative logic (tenuous as it may be) is upended when the stage goes dark and the actors lament that, without light, they have no clue where the story’s headed or what’s in the hearts or minds of the characters they’ve been portraying. Not knowing what comes next, they’re left to puzzle over the mystery of a rodeo fire that has been foreshadowed but hasn’t occurred.
Rodeo isn’t likely to be everybody’s cup of absurdism. The script is discombobulating and, played at warp speed, often opaque, sometimes vexing. Xhloe and Natasha don’t merely play multiple parts; frequently, they trade their roles back and forth in a verbal badminton match. This is amusing for a while, yet ultimately wearying.
Natasha (left) also plays Dilly Dally, Dale’s shadow.
In New York, Rodeo doesn’t look or feel like a Fringe Festival attraction. The readily portable sets and props required by the transitoriness of massive festival engagements have been replaced by a gaudy medicine-show environment created by Emmie Finckle and Angelo Sagnelli, the scenic and lighting designers, respectively. With all playgoers very near the in-the-round action, the performers’ relentless movement and flourishes of stage violence lend a circuslike, kayfabe vibe to the proceedings.
At this moment of civic tumult, Rodeo reads as an impassioned reaction to the lawless, might-makes-right politics attempting to shanghai U.S. democracy. Despite its energy, humor, and parade of surprises, this isn’t a show for audiences simply searching for a good time. Rodeo implores each spectator to partner with the creators in puzzling out what has gone so wrong in America and why.
And Then the Rodeo Burned Down runs through July 2 at Ars Nova (511 W. 54th St.). Performances are 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, with one on Monday, June 15. For tickets and information, visit arsnovanyc.com.
Written & Performed by Xhloe Rice & Natasha Roland
Co-Directors: Tom Costello, Xhloe Rice & Natasha Roland
Scenic Designer: Emmie Finckel
Co-Costume Designers: Christopher E. Ford, Xhloe Rice & Natasha Roland
Lighting Designer: Angelo Sagnelli
Co-Sound Designers: Carsen Joenk, Xhloe Rice & Natasha Roland
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