It’s no secret that Americans love a juicy royal drama. (Two words: The Crown.) And in the roughly 1,200 years of the British royal family’s reign, it doesn’t get much juicier than the life—and the wives—of Henry VIII.
But enough about him. We’re here to talk about six women—the women behind the man—that the musical Six (now open at the Brooks Atkinson) represents, celebrates, and idolizes as the pop stars they were surely always intended to be. Sick vocal riffs, tight harmonies, slick dance steps…here, they’re essentially Renaissance-era Spice Girls.
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★★★★ review here.]
If you see Six—and if you’re a Tudor history buff, a royal watcher, or someone who’s simply looking for a show with strong central female characters, you bloody well should—chances are you’ll be up to your elbows in preteen girls, many of whom already know all the lyrics. Co-written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss (who also directs with Jamie Armitage), Six arrives with a built-in fan base after runs in the West End and stints at Chicago’s Shakespeare Theater and A.R.T. in Cambridge, Mass., plus a couple other stops along the way; finally, more than a year and a half after the pandemic stopped the New York run in previews (bringing down the curtain on Six’s actual opening night), Broadway gets to experience this rockin’ rewrite of 16th-century her-story.
Six brings together a sextet of badass queens—clad in brilliant chain-trimmed corsets, studded black boots, and spiky crown-like headpieces designed by Gabriella Slade—to compete, American Idol–style, for a somewhat dubious honor: Who took the most crap from that self-serving, Church-splitting, six-times-married monarch?
In order, the wives are: Catherine of Aragon (played by Adrianna Hicks), who married Henry’s brother, was imprisoned after his death, and was then forced to wed Henry; Anne Boleyn (Andrea Macasaet), best remembered for her beheading, and also for helping to kick off the Protestant Reformation; Jane Seymour (Abby Mueller), who gave Henry his long-awaited heir but died of complications from childbirth; mail-order bride Anna of Cleves (Brittney Mack), whose looks allegedly didn’t live up to her portrait; the decades-younger Katherine Howard (Samantha Pauly), another who lost her head at her husband’s behest; and the twice-widowed Catherine Parr (Anna Uzele), a scholar—she wrote and published her own books—who outlived Henry. As the well-known rhyme—and oft-repeated lyric—goes: “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.”
Each queen gets an absurdly catchy pop-inspired anthem to tell her own (often untold) story. There’s a little Beyoncé in Catherine of Aragon’s salsa-tinged “No Way,” which details Henry’s infidelity, his quest for an annulment, and her refusal (“You must think that I’m crazy/ You wanna replace me, baby, there’s/ N-n-n-n-n-n-no way”). Anne Boleyn’s bouncy, electro-pop “Don’t Lose Ur Head” has a Lily Allen vibe. To play up her sex appeal—and youthfulness—Catherine Parr sings the breathy, Britney Spears–style “All You Wanna Do.”
While the show ostensibly sets up a competition to decide which queen suffered the most at her ex-hubby’s hands, you’ll notice the women backing each other up at every turn, and all through one another’s songs. Sure, they do their share of sniping. “My son had to deal with the loss of his mother,” wails Jane Seymour. Deadpans Anne Boleyn: “Wow yeah, kinda like how my body had to deal with the loss of its head.” But come time for Anna of Cleves’ “Get Down”—a swaggering hip-hop number that nods to Kanye West and Jamie Foxx’s “Gold Digger”—and they’re all in sync behind her like Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” crew. (The stylish choreography—which incorporates everything from Renaissance steps to royal waves, both Queen Elizabeth and Queen Bey style—is by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille.)
And speaking of backup, yes, that is an all-female onstage band behind our beautiful queens. As if we would have it any other way!
Six opened Oct. 3, 2021, at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Tickets and information: sixonbroadway.com
