Distracting bulls so they don’t gore riders, struggling to string together a show despite a crying lack of money: It’s all in a day’s work for rodeo clowns and theater-makers alike. The parallel makes an odd kind of sense in the warped world of “And Then the Rodeo Burned Down,” a comic slice of twisted yet warmhearted Americana that mixes precise physical comedy and loose absurdism.
The show, which opened on Sunday at Ars Nova, starts off with its creators and only cast members, who are known simply as Xhloe and Natasha (Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland), applying clown makeup as the Dolly Parton song “9 to 5” plays They have been collaborating since their high school days in Maryland and are now award-winning regulars at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where “Rodeo” premiered in 2022 and the pair’s new “Bigfoot Ripped My Dog in Half I Saw It” will open in August.
This partnership, which also includes other two-handers like “What If They Ate the Baby?” and “A Letter to Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First,” has clearly helped the two refine the synchronization required by this particular production, their Off Broadway debut: Xhloe portrays a rodeo clown, Dale, and Natasha is an eager-beaver newcomer who goes by Dilly Dally and tries to shadow Dale’s moves.
Resplendent in their chaps, hats and greasepaint, the two characters puff on an endless supply of cigarettes and muse on their dreams. Dale is proud to be a rodeo clown, grandly informing the wide-eyed Dilly Dally that “it’s kind of a really important job” — though what he really wants is to be a cowboy, the master of this one-ring small top. (Emmie Finckel’s scenic design is an evocative mix of circus and cowpoke fever dream, with hay bales and bandannas adorning the performing area. Christopher Ford collaborated with Xhloe and Natasha on the costumes.)
Just as tension is starting to build up between the clowns, the lights go out and the show takes a turn into almost metaphysical terrain, emphasis on “meta.” Dale and Dilly Dally were theatrical conceits and the performers now argue about how the story should proceed. “We can’t afford a cliché, but maybe we can budget for a plot twist,” the former Dilly says, adding, “like the two of them, falling in love, it’s so expected, it’s unexpected.”
It’s hard to argue against that logic.
As these interpreters get caught up in rebuilding the show, it feels as if they’ll have to do it all over again and again, like Vladimir and Estragon hoping against hope that one day Godot will turn up. The outcome doesn’t matter. Maybe our clowns can finally become cowboys. Maybe they can prevent the rodeo from going up in flames. Maybe they will kiss.
The conceit starts tripping on its own feet when it devolves into rope-a-dope role-playing where you’re unsure who’s who and who wants what. And yet, and yet. … There is a genuine artistic sensibility in this show, which Xhloe and Natasha directed with Tom Costello. Every time I became a little frustrated with its tilting into whimsy, that feeling was superseded by a surreal bit of slapstick or the perfect music cue at the perfect time from the well-curated playlist, which includes the likes of “Ring of Fire” and “(You’re the) Devil in Disguise.”
More important, these sweethearts of the rodeo stand out in a competitive clown scene because they don’t go for shock value, and their transgression is tenderness. (A current master of the art form, Natalie Palamides, brilliantly juggles both.) Whatever world Xhloe and Natasha are building, we need to see more of it.
And Then the Rodeo Burned Down Through July 2 at Ars Nova, Manhattan; arsnovanyc.com. Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes.
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