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Xhloe and Natasha make theater rooted in the ancient art of clowning. But that gets more literal in their current show at Ars Nova. And Then the Rodeo Burned Down concerns a real clown – a rodeo clown named Dale, to be exact. Dale dreams of becoming a cowboy, or at least his rodeo-fantasy version of one. Encountering his own sentient shadow by the name of Dilly-Dally, Dale enters an in-the-round world of mirror-imagery, precision blocking, split-second choreography, and dark cowboy music prefigured contrastingly by the feminist country anthems heard pre-show on the P.A.
Xhloe Rice is Dale. Natasha Roland is Dilly-Dally, and later a cowboy with an attitude. Simple enough – but when the fictional conceit breaks down, meta-theater and role-switching emerge.
If this is all a bit hard to picture, it may be because Xhloe and Natasha create shows (like their bleaker A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First) that almost represent a genre all their own. There’s comedy and clowning, eros and acrobatics. There’s zany dialogue that touches on deep human subjects. The pair are masters of physical comedy and conceptual juggling.
They’re also surrounded by a fantastic creative team including co-director Tom Costello and co-costume designer Christopher E. Ford (those “co-s” tell you something about the fundamental creative force behind the show). The theater has been blistered into a whirlwind of color, and the lighting (Angelo Sagnelli) and sound (Carsen Joenk, another “co-“) are as sharp as the performances.
Remarkably, out of all the mishegoss, characters develop who are real – in the theatrical sense. But what’s really “real” in a Xhloe and Natasha show? Only the feeling and the energy. This show, a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe in an earlier iteration, sizzles with both. It’s dazzling the senses at Ars Nova in NYC through June 18, 2026. Tickets and schedule are online.
