by Sheila Barth
Sitting among a full house of highly-charged, enthusiastic high school students and their teachers, it’s easy to see why American Repertory Theater had to add six more performances of the all-female, 75-minute, rocking musical “Six”, by Toby Marlow, 24, and 25-year-old Lucie Moss.
It’s even easier to see why the production is heading to Broadway. The youthful audience was perpetually entranced and excited, cheering and whooping loudly after every song.
The female musicians, performing on designer Emma Bailey’s uncluttered stage, with the bombastic six-female ensemble, became emblazoned with Tom Deiling’s pulsating, brilliant-hued and swirling lights. Dazzling in designer Gabriella Slade’s black-and-glittery pop concert regalia, the dancing queens burst with non-stop, fun energy, strutting, stomping, and singing.
The plot isn’t light, nor happy-go-lucky. It’s the story – or as they call it, the tragic HERstory – of Henry VIII’s six wives, their sad fates, and their competition fixed on whose life and reign was the most horrendous. Each actress belts out solos, duets, and ensemble numbers with tremendous fire, moving and grooving to the terrific band. Their frequent refrain is Divorced. Beheaded. Died. Survived. The playwrights based the plot and its clever, double entendre lyrics on historic facts, so the pop concert isn’t merely sensational. It also teaches theatergoers about the Tudor era, the monarch, his wives, their offspring, fates, and Henry’s abolishing the reign of the Catholic Church and the Pope to start his own religion. He wanted to marry Anne Boleyn (comedic Andrea Macasaet), even though his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, (the terrific Adrianna Hicks) was spared execution but banished to a nunnery, and later, to More Castle, because she didn’t give Henry a son. “No Way,” she sings powerfully. She was the mother of the future Queen Mary of England.
Portraying Anne Boleyn, Macasaet tosses out several quips about not losing
one’s head and naughty references. Anne was the mother of Elizabeth I. Anne’s
lady-in-waiting-No. 3 queen Jane Seymour truly loved Henry, she (Abby Mueller)
sings in her powerful, bluesy solo, adding she died of post-natal
complications two weeks after bearing Henry’s only son, Edward. Loudly
protesting she doesn’t care, Henry’s next wife, Anna of Cleves (Brittney Mack)
was upset when Henry summoned her to be his next queen, after viewing a
portrait of her, but when she arrived, he claimed she lacked sophistication,
looked nothing like her picture, and he was unhappy with her looks. After
six months, he had their marriage annulled.
Katherine Howard (Courtney Mack) , young, sexy, and sexually abused by her
music teacher when she was 13, loved Francis Dereham and courtier Thomas
Culpepper, arousing accusations of adultery. The three were executed. “All
You Wanna Do,” is exploit her sexually, she sings. Henry’s final wife,
Catherine Parr, Anna Uzele) feared execution, so she gave up the love of her
life, declaring plaintively in song, “I Don’t Need Your Love”. Catherine also
took over maternal duties, raising the other deceased wives’ offspring.
Whose life with Henry VIII was the worst? Whose ambition to be queen overrode her fear? Did any of the women love Henry or desire the throne’s power? It’s enough to make you lose your head. These ladies concluded it didn’t matter who had it worst. Being Henry’s tragic wives carved their names in history – uh, HERstory, all intensified, glorified, and sensationalized, in “Six’s” pulsating trappings. The full house of adolescents and us young-at-hearts won’t forget them, either.
