Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Midnight Cowboy Radio
Ally Ibach
Genre: American Theater, Dark Comedy, Theatre
Venue: theSpace
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Kentucky, Labor Day weekend. Radio Cowgirl is doing her regular late-night show, but this particular, fate-changing evening will not be like the others. Written and performed by Ally Ibach and directed by Patricia Runcie-Rice.
Review
“And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast”
— Don McLean, “American Pie”
With its great, poppy chorus, Don McLean’s exceptionally successful song “American Pie” remains catchy and fun more than 40 years after its release, but what really makes the track so durable is the undercurrent of seriousness in its lyrics, a feeling of sadness that the United States has seen the best of its days and that troubles lie ahead. It’s thus fitting that the song starts, ends and runs throughout Ally Ibach’s exciting new work, Midnight Cowboy Radio, a play that seems like a comedy at its outset but eventually reveals a deep concern for the darker and unsettling problems immediately facing the country.
Midnight Cowboy Radio owes an obvious tip of its brim to Eric Bogosian’s Pulitzer-nominated 1987 drama Talk Radio, but beyond the setting, the plays differ vastly. Whereas Talk Radio centers on Barry Champlain, a scabrous Jewish shock-jock host who rages in despair at the state of the country and ends up being assassinated by one of his deeply disturbed listeners, Midnight Cowboy Radio focuses on Radio Cowgirl, a big-hearted Christian advice giver based in Kentucky who performs for Instagram Live during her off-air moments to keep the positive affirmations coming.
The sincere and optimistic counsel Radio Cowgirl gives her listeners ranges from sweetly misguided to downright unhelpful. When a 12-year-old listener named Sarah calls and tells Radio Cowgirl that she’s scared to return to school because of school shooters, Radio Cowgirl finds herself unexpectedly flustered. Not wanting to anger any of her faithful listeners, she gaslights the child.
RADIO COWGIRL: Yes, of course, the new has been crazy now, hasn’t it? Well, I still think you’re gonna’ be all right. You have just got to always be kind to everyone, and that’s the best way to… protect yourself. Okay?
SARAH: Yeah, okay.
RADIO COWGIRL: Okayyyy. Good night now, gotta get to bed so you can be up bright and early for school in the morning.
But all is still not well at midnight. Radio Cowgirl’s relentless positivity provides a mask for her to hide her own significant problems, and Ibach’s gradual transformation from wholesome radio host to frightened wife is haunting, especially as it sinks in that she has passively contributed to her difficult situation by not participating politically. “I personally have never voted, because I don’t believe in all that nonsense.”
Inactions, like actions, have consequences, Radio Cowgirl learns, though for her this lesson might possibly be arriving too late.
Ibach and director Patricia Runcie-Rice have created an exciting new work that speaks to the moment while also being wildly entertaining. And I hope their show gets another go. Midnight Cowboy Radio deserves a better space than what theSpace provided and would also likely benefit from a less abrupt ending. Fortunately, the show can afford to add some minutes to its running time; it’s the rare play I’ve seen at this year’s Edinburgh Festival that could actually benefit from being slightly longer. Like Don McLean’s eight-and-a-half-minute classic song, Midnight Cowboy Radio has something to say and merits the time it needs to say it.
