Two questions will spring to mind as you leave the ebulliently history-light kicky girl-power fabulousness that is Six, now playing at the Hobby Center.
Why can’t all modern musicals be a sweet spot 80 minutes long and, how is it that Six manages to be full of fun, original, pop-charty songs yet other musicals resort lazily to jukebox form?
I have no answer to either, except to say, enjoy while you can and endure when you must.
And enjoy is something easily done in this energetic, concert-loud production that depicts the notorious six wives of Henry VIII as Spice Girl-like singers battling it out for which one of them had it the worst married to old nasty Hank.
“Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived” goes the lyrics of the opening number, setting up the fates of the six wives in a number evocative of Chicago’s Cell Block Tango.
The remaining eight songs (backed on the prop-less, minimal stage by an all-female band) give us two group numbers, and the rest as an opportunity for each wife to explain where they came from, how they met the King, and what became of their marriage to him.
So few songs to explain almost 40 years of Tudor history, it makes Sparks Notes seem like dense text. But then no one is pretending the whirlwind fast Six (book, music, and lyrics by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss) is an instructive lecture.
We’re here to have fun and begin to see these women as more than just footnotes or punchlines. If you want to know more (and I’ll bet many people do after seeing the show) there’s something called the Internet that will give you what you need.
“Houston, are you ready to vote on who wins?” shout the wives, decked out in corset mini dresses, shining with studs, sequins, and metallic everything. Breaking 4th wall from the get-go is on tap as they ramp us up for our story-time, taking their turns in wifely chronological order.
Gerianne Pérez as Catherine of Aragon belts out her number in righteous indignity that would make Alanis Morissette proud. Zan Berube as Anne Boleyn lols and sorry not sorry’s her way through her song in perfectly hysterical Paris Hilton fashion. While every number has its clever moment, perhaps none is historically funnier than Boleyn justifying the King’s break from Catholicism in order to marry her as, “Everybody chill, it’s totes God’s will.”
Amina Faye as Jane Seymour delivers the musical’s emotional power ballad and brings the house down with her vocal prowess. Terica Marie as Anna of Cleves gives us Megan Thee Stallion moves and Lil’ Kim’s screw-you attitude in one of the most exciting numbers of the evening.
Aline Mayagoitia as Katherine Howard has the hardest task of the evening, delivering a song that adheres to the pop standard, but depicts serial sexual harassment and even rape. It’s through her number that we start to lift the hood on the misogynist engine that drove over all these women and left them for dead in one way or another.
Finally, there’s Sydney Parra as Catherine Parr, one of only two wives (Anna of Cleves did also) who managed to survive Henry, slowing things down once again in a heart-wrenching song of love abandoned for kingly commanded duty.
But Parr has another job in the musical. Through her, we resolve the nagging issue the show has birthed – what to do about the funny, but also bitchy and competitive dynamic the wives are engaged in?
After all, no modern musical wants to promote catfights as it’s raison d’être.
With Parr as the peacemaking voice of reason, we get the syrupy, women-positive, kumbaya ending we all knew we were headed towards. But that’s just fine. It’s a small price to pay for the riot we’ve had getting there.
Take note history buffs, Henry VIII has been officially unfriended, may the wives’ memory be a kick-ass blessing.
Six continues through November 20 at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-2525 or visit thehobbycenter.org or broadwayatthehobbycenter.com. $35-$100.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
