From the fertile imaginations of Brits Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss comes this wild and womanly “herstory” lesson like no other that has ever blown out your ears, dazzled your eyes, cranked your funny bone, and fried your brain.
And I hope Hilary Mantel, the late and great historian, saw this iteration of the life of her main bad dude, Henry VIII, before she crossed over because I know she would have loved the cheek.
The conceit is a hoot: the disenfranchised six wives of that me-first British monarch gather for a sing-off competition to determine the Queen of Querulousness, the Damsel of Distraught, the Maiden of Misery. For nearly 80 minutes, this bevy of the beset tell their various stories in the musical styles of, for example, Beyoncé, Avril Lavigne, Adele, Rhianna, Britney Spears, and Alicia Keys. (And I couldn’t help thinking also of Janet Jackson and Tina Turner, not least because Gabriella Slade’s spangly costumes are more courtier cut-offs than G-rated gowns, showing legs for days, with strutting-with-handheld-mic being the main kind of locomotion across the bright-lit stage.)
And the audience is supposed to pick the winner (loser)!
But wait: the name of the show is “Six,” not “One.” One of the women suddenly realizes that the only reason they’re remembered 500 years later is because they were married to the same jerk, Henry the Hubristic, their individual lives lived only in reference to him. For 70 minutes they have been telling us who they were — their skills, their dreams, their disappointments — and they all had something in common: strength in the face of sexism, personality in the face of powerlessness.
Competition with each other? Hell, no! If the world is going to lump them together as “the six,” then they should stand together, a phalanx of friends, a sextet of sisters.
And for all the fun and outlandishness of this telling (Anne Boleyn is always making cracks about her severance pay), there is heart here, genuine pathos for the brief lives of these who were often too young to know what to do except follow orders, who were bossed and battered. If there is one story that especially affected me, it was Katherine Howard’s, abused by men before her marriage at 17 to Henry and beheaded at the age of 19 because of charges of lubricious behavior with other men. Male privilege in a nutshell.
This production, directed by Moss and Jamie Armitage (touring all across the country through the end of 2025), is power-packed, with in-your-face lighting effects and a hot onstage band (Sterlyn Termine, Rose Laguana, Kami Lujan, led by keyboardist Jane Cardona) that gets periodic props from the actors — rightly so.
And the Queens! At Tuesday night’s opening, they were (in order of marriage to his high-horseness) Kristina Leopold, Cassie Silva, Kelly Denice Taylor, Danielle Mendoza, Alize Cruz, and Taylor Sage Evans. Each has a moment to shine, and shine she does. Ensemble? Tight harmonies and in-sync moves (choreography by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille, who was one of the show’s eight Tony noms. Dance captain: Aryn Bohannon.)
Behind us sat a mother and her daughter, perhaps 10 years old, both of whom knew the words and sang along and screamed as if they were at a concert. Well, they were. Fourth wall broken: “Hello, Schenectady!”
Check it out between now and Sunday, which is Mother’s Day!