My Festival: Xhloe and Natasha
There are thousands of shows in Edinburgh this month. Please explain why we should come and see yours.
For And Then The Rodeo Burned Down we only had a week long run here last year, we had to turn close to 80 people away from our sold-out final performances. Now we’ve been given the opportunity to have the run we couldn’t afford last year. Audience members we chat with after the show have said it's the best play they’ve ever seen. And we didn’t even bribe them to say that! We’ve been told there’s a lot of hype about this show this year, so come see what all the hype is about!
On the opposite end, our new show What If They Ate The Baby? is a world premiere. There’s certainly pressure premiering a new work now with a lot of high expectations, but our absurdist take on the queer American cannibal housewife is just as memorable, clowny, and thought-provoking. It can stand on its own next to our award-winning show, but it’s only on for two weeks so on the chance that last year's success wasn’t a fluke, get your tickets before they’re gone.
Who or what was the biggest inspiration for your show?
Our biggest inspiration for both of our shows is the principles of traditional clown. It might not seem like that ties in well with rodeo cowboys and 1950s housewives, but the simplicity of “show don’t tell” and the honesty of being unable to hide what you’re feeling, your body will always give it away. For Rodeo, it’s the things we would never admit and in What If They Ate The Baby? it’s the things we desperately want to.
Tell us something about you that would surprise people.
It always surprises people to find out we work full-time day jobs outside of theatre. Xhloe works as a math tutor and Natasha teaches children how to skateboard. All of the rehearsing and preparation for our two shows happened between the hours of 8pm and 2am, seven days a week. I guess the most surprising thing is that we’re not tired of each other yet, though we certainly are tired.
What are the best and worst things that have happened to you at a festival?
The best thing is easily our Scotsman Fringe First win last year, we’re constantly replaying that day in our heads. We have joint custody of the award plaque between our apartments in NYC. Ironically, maybe the worst thing happened only days prior when we were staying in a 14-person hostel room underground. An intoxicated man tried to crawl into bed with us in the middle of the night, thinking one of our beds was his. It didn’t seem he spoke much English and he was truly just trying to go to bed, but it was definitely rattling, it took our lighting designer Angelo yelling at him for him to get the message.
What’s the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night?
First thing in the morning is always to check ticket sales, it helps us think about our gameplan for the day. Then we pick up the pieces of our costumes that we threw off the night before, check ticket sales, make coffee, and check ticket sales. Maybe we shouldn’t be so obsessed but we get so excited about it. At night we remove clown makeup, and probably a few layers of skin. Then we devote at least an hour to checking our social media for the shows.
Our audiences have been so responsive and awesome about connecting with us and spreading the word about our shows. The very last thing is always turning on rain sounds at full blast, we are sharing a room and Natasha is an early riser, Xhloe is not.
Thanks for the interview! We’d like to buy you a drink. Where are we going and what are we drinking?
We’d actually be asking you for recommendations, we’re far from locals. We’ve been waiting a year for a properly poured Guinness after having our first here last August.
And Then The Rodeo Burned Down, theSpace @ Niddry Street, 8.25pm, until 17 August, and theSpace @ Venue 45, various times, 18-26 August.
What If They Ate The Baby?, theSpace @ Niddry Street, 14-19 August, 5.50pm, and theSpace on the Mile, 21-26 August, 9.15pm