I suppose the love the boy scouts played by Grasshopper (Xhloe Rice) and Ace (Natasha Roland) have for President Lyndon B. Johnson is, in some respects, little different from the adoration some youngsters reserve for pop stars, prolific movie actors, or successful sportspeople. Here, the anticipation of the president passing through their town, albeit on a train travelling at speed, is enough to elicit disproportionately elaborate preparations which ultimately add up to very little, if anything at all, but there’s a childlike certainty that their efforts weren’t in vain.
The analogy between the boys’ love for Johnson and, say, Beatlemania isn’t – without giving too much away – merely innocuous but irritating, but rather disturbing, as the consequences of being agreeable to a political leader whose foreign policy included an escalation of United States military activity in the Vietnam War (there were in excess of 200,000 troops deployed by the end of 1965) became increasingly evident. So where does God come into the narrative, given the show’s title?
I’m not sure He does: the boys attend church, because their families do, because it’s the sort of thing upstanding American families did at the time – and in some communities, still do – regardless of actual adherence to religious instruction, riddled as one might expect with contradictions and inconsistencies. Unsure as to whether prayer actually works in one of their “extreme situations”, they clasp their hands together and shut their eyes anyway, only to find the words of President Johnson coming to mind rather than those of the Almighty.
The Pledge of Allegiance is recited and revised several times over the course of the show, each time lurching further into a singular commitment to the cause of Johnsonism. Their story isn’t in forward chronological order, though to their credit, the story was never confusing even as it time-hopped. Dramatised scenes are often quite physical – the phrase ‘exhausting to watch’ might be overused these days but it applies here nonetheless, and there are moments of actor-musicianship that add yet another layer of sophistication to this intricate piece of theatre.
Elements of absurdism creep in from time to time but this is, all things considered, a deeply compelling and perky one-act show that eschews convention from beginning to end, even to the point of departing from having the kind of happy ending that one might expect from so much jollity that led up to the final scene.
Review by Chris Omaweng
In an absurdist two-hander influenced by the 1960s and the Vietnam War, two boy scouts directly address the audience, telling stories, playing soldiers and declaring their admiration for current president Lyndon B. Johnson, a hero in their eyes. With the Scouts traditionally known as a way of preparing boys for military service, and Lyndon B. Johnson notorious for putting young men, barely 18, on the firing line, Xhloe and Natasha explore children’s innocence and relationship with war using their signature style of clowning, physicality and fast pace. Fitting with Xhloe and Natasha’s company ethos centred around queerness and gender identity, A Letter to Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First reflects on the androgyny of gender traits that society allows boys to have in comparison to when they become men.
Lighting Designer: Angela Sangelli (he/him)
A LETTER TO LYNDON B. JOHNSON OR GOD: WHOEVER READS THIS FIRST
Written and performed by Xhloe Rice (they/she/he) and Natasha Roland (she/they/them)
King’s Head Theatre, 4 to 14 September 2024
