A Letter to Lyndon B Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First, King’s Head Theatre Review
Written by Penny for Theatre and Tonic.
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in return for an honest review. All opinions are our own.
Following their run at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe which saw the duo behind this new piece of theatre win their third consecutive Fringe First Award, its creators and performers Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland have now brought their work to London’s King’s Head Theatre.
This two-hander introduces us to two all-American boys, Ace (Roland) and Grasshopper (Rice) – nobody uses real names they tell us. They love being outdoors, climbing ropes and playing soldiers. They’ll spit and shake hands but won’t hold on for too long as boys don’t hold hands unless it’s a really extreme situation.
They’re desperate to come of age but what happens if they become men too soon?
The clever script, drawing on the duo’s own experiences growing up in military families, uses a series of vignettes to tell the story of this typical American boyhood, interspersed with a fable about a boy who asks a witch to speed up time and make him grow up into a man sooner. It packs a lot into its 50-minute running time.
The action is underscored by the boys’ love and admiration for President Lyndon B Johnson – a somewhat misplaced dedication given his legacy was arguably dominated by the loss of so many young American lives in the Vietnam War. With references to either absent or intimidating father figures, Johnson is the male role model in the lives of our two young Scouts. The play has a soundtrack of Beatles tunes spanning the years of the Johnson administration, some played by the performers on harmonicas which adds to the feeling that we’re listening to friends telling tales around the campfire.
The performance space has seating in the round and the only stage furniture is a tyre that the performers use to set the various scenes. Atmosphere is created and enhanced by outstanding sound and lighting effects, with lighting design from Angelo Sagnelli – taking us from the birdsong of the American countryside to the landscape of war. This staging is largely very effective but with such a quick-fire delivery of the rich script, a few lines were lost when the actors were facing the opposite direction.
As performers, Rice and Roland have exceptional stage presence. From the start they break the fourth wall, drawing the audience into their stories and and adding to the intimacy of the performance. They move around the stage with impressive physicality, leaping on and off the tyre and each other with perfectly executed choreography, completely in sync with each other. In their scruffy scouts’ uniforms with muddy legs and feet, they are immediately convincing as this pair of young boys – a prank involving worms allowing them to give us a brilliant range of emotions, including youthful exuberance, daring and childish fear. There are plenty of laughs as the action unfolds, making the serious observations all the more impactful.
This is very much a snapshot of American life and some references may not fully resonate with a UK audience that only has a rudimentary knowledge of American history. But, the delivery is so accessible that you don’t need to know the Pledge of Allegiance in order to appreciate its significance to these two characters and equally to be entertained by their attempts to memorise it.
With a poignant ending that puts the boys’ childhood games and dreams into a harsh perspective, this is an innovatively presented hour of powerful theatre, from two creatives at the absolute top of their game. It questions traditional perceptions of masculinity with humour and sensitivity and packs a real emotional punch.
A Letter to Lyndon B Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First runs at the King’s Head Theatre until 14th September.
★ ★ ★ ★
