I’m a musical theater puritan, growing up and raised on Stephen Sondheim, Maury Yeston, Kander & Ebb, and Lerner and Lowe. Later on, I discovered Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. So, I’m not the kind of guy who truly enjoys a jukebox musical, much less new musicals that stray so far away from what I am used to. I didn’t like the thought of ‘Hamilton’ until I finally got to see it and it completely changed my mind. So, I find it funny that I was against coming in to watch the musical ‘Six’ because of its usage of pop music as its aesthetic and motif; but I was – once again! – made to eat my own words and when I saw the show and realised how amazing it is.
The 2017 musical by Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow reimagines the six wives of Henry VIII – Catherine of Aragon, Ann Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Ann of Cleves, Katherine Howard, and Catherine Parr – as an all-girl pop group, who are in a concert and decide to hold a competition to decide who would be the group’s main vocalist. The winner will be determined by who suffered the most under Henry VIII.
The whole show takes on a full pop concert aesthetic. The backdrop is a dynamic LED light board that plays off on the songs. The band, called “Ladies in Waiting” are on stage with the performers and also part of the show in their own nuanced way. The bright, structured costumes are a mix of 70s Eurythmics and Devo inspired outfits with added touches of Victorian-era designs. And the five actresses come out, singing their hearts out and calling out to the audience, in our case “Hello, Manila,” as if they were straight out of a tour (which they are).
The opening song, “Ex-Wives” got me afraid, and proved my point about how pop songs aren’t fit for musical theater. The song is in the narrative mode and tries to establish the characters and the setting in a pop song and it sort of comes off clunky and verbose. Musically, it feels all over the place and it made me feel smug and petty.
In-between, the actresses are doing an amazing job at bringing these characters to life. The women are feisty, filled to the brim with personality, and are all leads in their own way. To prove they suffered the most, they each get a song – a monologue, if you will – to explain the hardships they endured, and this is when my feelings about the show shifted.
Each individual song, after the opening, tells a story about the sort of oppressive world women have to live through each day. There’s sexism, unfair beauty standards, and oppression of all sorts that somehow work so well in each individual story. The songs, when focused on just one person’s story works so well and each wife has their own distinct musical style that was purposefully inspired by an existing pop star (according to some online articles).
The touring cast is insanely talented, and they take each song and just knock it out of the ballpark. Billie Kerr plays Catherine of Aragon and I love how she never hid her thick Scottish accent while playing the English queen who hailed from Spain. It creates a layer of artifice that fits so well to the show and adds another layer of humor that just fits perfectly. Yna Tresvalles plays Ann Boleyn, and she is so full of charm and spunk. In my opinion, her character has the funniest lines, and she keeps it going throughout the whole show. Jane Seymour, the only woman who King Henry VIII supposedly loved, is played by Liberty Stottor, who gets to sing the emotional power ballad. Her soaring vocals creates a truly emotional moment that helps break the hilarity of the first two songs. Hannah Victoria kills it as Ann of Cleves, whose song is ready for the Top 40 supremacy. Lizzie Emery channels Britney Spears as she portrays the provocative Katherine Howard, whose song is more an acting piece than a vocal piece and Emery sells the story of sexual exploitation so convincingly that it brings you back into the story (the way Jane Seymour’s song does). Finally, Eloise Lord nails Catherine Parr and has the unenviable position to play the character that turns the show around. Her incredible vocals turn her R&B flavoured song into a showstopper.
I had to mention all the six actresses because they were all phenomenal. ‘Six’ is pretty much a monologue play that is sung-through and despite it’s silly pop-concert conceit, manages to really bring to light the sort of challenges women continue to face every day. They use the stories of the six wives but told with modern touches – lingo and jargon, dating apps, and the like – to show that the way the patriarchy has objectified women hasn’t much change in 500 years.
Except for the first song, which I’m not a fan of, the rest of the songs fit perfectly as both narrative exploration of character as well as rousing pop songs that will get you clapping to the beat. It’s such a fun show that I was taken completely by surprise and fell immediately in love with the musical. In fact, I don’t want to listen to the album on a streaming site because I want to remember how it sounded with this touring cast in my head. I wish I could see it again and I wish more women get to see it for its message of reclaiming your identity from the patriarchy.
My Rating:
SIX the Musical is currently running for a strictly limited engagement at The Theatre at Solaire until October 20. For more updates and exclusive peeks behind the royal curtains, keep your eyes on gmg-productions.com and follow @gmg.productions. This October, the queens of “SIX” aren’t just rewriting history—they’re making it.
