Broadway Review: Six Is The Best Musical of The Season
Okay! That title is a bold statement, but SIX is more than a musical. It is vibrant testament to a reality women must face: men can destroy us and our life, even if lost, can solely be recalled by their destruction and not our value. Yet, beneath that harsh truth, is a literal, spiritual revival veiled as a historical, pop bonanza. Yes, for 90 minutes, the six wives of Henry VIII sing to their tumultuous marriage with a King that would literally create a religion just to have sex with a woman. Beheaded, divorced, died, and survived, the latter being only one, were the only options to loving Henry, but the real question SIX asks is why we LOVE wives.
Located at the Brooks Atkinson Theater and written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, with the latter directing with Jamie Armitage, the show aptly entertains and challenges the audience with a sincere question…. Why are we so fascinated with Henry VIII’s wives? Could it be all the scandal and trauma? Things that even our modern media churns at an understanding that people really do watch a car crash: whether they love or hate it. In some ways, Henry VIII’s love life was like one car crash after the next, and if there is one thing that history will always do, it is overshadow herstory and the women that defined humanity beyond the men that treated them inhumanely like: Catherine of Aragon (Adrianna Hicks), Anne Boleyn (Andrea Macasaet), Jane Seymour (Abby Mueller), Anne of Cleves (Brittney Mack), Katherine Howard (normally played by Samantha Pauly but I saw her fabulous alternate Courtney Mack), and Catherine Parr (Anna Uzele).
With glitzed costuming by Gabriella Slade, SIX looks like Britney Spears is back on tour again: magical, colorful, and freeing. The show opens with such glam and high-octane energy through “Ex-Wives” that I cried. This was my first Broadway show in two years, and it felt like the most exciting welcome back to the magic of theater. It was jovial, powerful, and fun. With lighting by Tim Deiling and sound design by Paul Gatehouse, the show appeared and sounded like the human embodiment of a fidget spinner; you just wanted to keep it in your hands to avoid stress and forget all that is going wrong around you. With a packed house clapping, standing in cheer, dancing, and falling in love with EACH QUEEN, Six felt unique, as a musical, because it is inherently interactive and being introduced to NYC after two years of non-touch. Moreover, it is led only by women.
Hicks’ Catherine of Aragon starts the charge and conquering of the audience with “No Way,” and sets the celebratory tone of a show that, in truth, is about the devastating tragedies these women endured because of a man and how their public memory is still defined by him. Think of it! Would we talk about these women if they were not destroyed by a man, and how many female victims, today, suffer the same fate? Let’s not act like we cite the lives of True Crime victims more than their deaths. In essence, as a society we are fascinated by woman’s doom, as she sets up the mantle, Macasaet’s Anne Boleyn bitingly climbs. Honestly, each actor deserves a TONY for their ability to approach darkness as if it was sold in a candy shop. Macasaet’s Boleyn smiles and seduces her audience like she did Henry VIII, but teaches us new details that we, often, forget when discussing women who fall victim to men: their age.
Catherine of Aragon was whisked from all that she knew at 16, and when Henry did not want her, he was READY to put her in a nunnery: a fact that leads to a plethora of witty jokes. In truth, this musical is hilarious, which is why its darker notes and grimmer details can truly sledge-hammer you like, Katherine Howard’s tragic pop ode to skeevy men (All You Wanna Do). From 13, she was at the sexual whim of men, and Courtney Mack beautifully veils under biting shade the pain of being a girl who spent her life violated and betrayed by men only to end up beheaded by a king. Meanwhile, Anne Boleyn was 22 when her dad pushed for her to enter Henry’s court and private quarters. Of course, people will argue that “those were times” and they were, but when I look at little girls, age of 11, I can’t imagine their minds and hearts ready to be married to a man, let alone a king. By the way, age 11, was the age of Anne of Cleves first betrothal, but according to Brittney Mack’s dynamite portrayal in her song, “Get Down,” she truly ended up the “Queen of The Castle.”
Frankly, by the end of the show or rather “competition” you are both spiritually uplifted and pensively wondering. The whole premise of the musical is that audience will pick their “favorite queen” based on how each riffs and rattles through her trauma under 6 minute songs. I swear, with that description, Squid Games sounds like a lighter child’s play. Yet, by the end of the show, no one could choose. Uzele’s Catherina Parr BREAKS your heart with a glorious, belting rendition of “I Don’t Need Your Love,” and Mueller’s “Heart of Stone” feels bound to be chosen across highschool cabarets as the “the song” sopranos choose to show their chops. Each cast member assured I learned, grew, laughed, and danced as if the breath of life was returning to me, and that is such a rare feat in musicals. Yet, to do that after the world has been so changed by its mass tragedy, THAT IS A MIRACLE! So I highly suggest you return to Broadway and watch the happy miracle that is SIX! Click Here To Buy Tickets!
