WAR IS FOR CLOWNS
Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland join the thrilling ranks of clown-trained performers (Julia Masli is another) reshaping the boundaries of theatrical storytelling. A Letter to Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First is an electrifying 65-minute performance that plays only through June 29 at the Soho Playhouse (formerly the legendary Vandam Playhouse) before moving on to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Written, directed, and performed by this talented dynamic duo, their performance is must-see theater at its best.
Rice and Roland bring their signature mix of clowning, physical theatre, and soul-deep story-theater to a tale of two brothers growing up amid the escalating chaos of the Vietnam War. The boys’ journey from rope swings and spit-shakes to fatigues and battlegrounds is told with blistering energy and astonishing physical precision. You won’t be able to look away.
The bare proscenium space is transformed: audience members line the sides and upstage wall, thrust into the world of two muddy-kneed Boy Scouts who leap through time, memory, and imagination. Their only set piece, a single oversized tire, becomes a prop of endless utility—jumped on, climbed on, rolled and repurposed into whatever the story needs. It’s a performance of endless development and absolutely zero dead space.
The play’s structure pulses with movement and musicality. Beatles songs, live harmonica, and a dynamic soundscape conjure rivers, battlefields, batting practice, and campfire tales. (Sound designer uncredited, but clearly integral.) The result is a seamless collaboration between performers and tech—evoking nostalgia, innocence, and the surreal absurdity of war through layers of image and sound.
The artists portray a cast of characters beyond brothers—fellow scouts, parents, camp counselors—while never losing the emotional throughline of the two brothers trying to make their hero, President Lyndon B. Johnson, proud. Painted red cheeks and clown noses hint at theatrical artifice, but the commitment to character is as real and riveting as any traditional drama.
One of the show’s most powerful elements is its gender play: two women embodying boyhood’s roughhousing, tenderness, and the brutal pivot into manhood. Their androgyny adds poignant texture to the exploration of masculine identity, loyalty, and the heartbreaking cost of coming of age in wartime.
Angelo Sagnelli’s lighting design is subtle but effective—pushing the focus onto the kinetic brilliance of the performers. And Rice and Roland’s direction—like their writing and performing—is creatively physical, emotionally rich, and endlessly inventive.
Don’t let the word “clowning” fool you. This is not whimsy for whimsy’s sake. It’s theater with teeth, with heart, and with a beating pulse of truth. Rice and Roland are a rare and arresting duo. Catch them now before they vanish to Edinburgh into fringe legend.
photos by Morgan McDowell
A Letter to Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First
SoHo Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street
65 minutes
Wed-Sat at 7; Sun at 5
ends on June 29, 2025
for tickets, call 212.691.1555 or visit Soho Playhouse
then plays Edinburgh Fringe Festival August 2-23, 2025
for tickets and other shows, visit Xhloe and Natasha
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Gregory Fletcher is an author, a theater professor, a playwright, director, and stage manager. His craft book on playwriting is entitled Shorts and Briefs, and publishing credits include two YA novels (Other People’s Crazy, and Other People’s Drama), 2 novellas in the series Inclusive Bedtime Stories, 2 short stories in The Night Bazaar series, and several essays. Website, Facebook, Instagram.
