Six puts the spotlight back where it belongs: on the women who made the man.
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| Photo courtesy of the Ordway |
True story: I have always been a history buff, for my whole life. Even in elementary school, I sought out books about the days of yore, imagining what it might be like to wear a ruff or practice a harpsichord or cross the ocean on a great ship.
I never thought about it at the time, but in retrospect I always made a point of seeking books about women first. Queens were my favorite. I had a book about 10 of the most powerful queens in Europe (many of whom, such as Eleanor of Aquitaine or Catherine the Great, are still sadly neglected in history studies) that I read so many times I nearly had it memorized. I bought all of the Dear America series (RIP), read American Girl books as soon as I got my hands on them, and was obsessed with the Royal Diaries series, which introduced me to queens like Nzingha and Kaiulani who were never covered in my textbooks.
It says a lot, however, that the above series were about the limit of what I was able to find about women in history when I was growing up. And they weren’t easy to access – in my small town the libraries didn’t carry most of these books, so I had to scrimp and save my allowance to buy them at book fairs (they weren’t cheap), or borrow from friends who got them as gifts.
So imagine the joy of elementary school age me when it was announced that Six was coming to the Ordway. Six is a rock concert style show that tells the story of the six wives of Henry VIII (the first Queen Elizabeth’s father, if you’re not sure who he was). Each wife gets the chance to sing her story to the audience in a competition to determine which had it worst. By the end, however, they realize that they’ve been given short shrift; they aren’t famous because they were the wives of a king – their king was famous because he had so many colorful wives. Instead of competing, they band together to re-define their stories and leave on their own terms.
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| Photo courtesy of the Ordway |
It should be no surprise that I LOVE this concept. It helps that the team of queens performing is terrifically talented and more than give these historical figures their due. As there’s not much of a plot beyond what I just described, let me break down the characters for you to give you a better idea of what goes down:
- Catherine of Aragon: Henry’s first and longest-lasting wife, Catherine of Aragon, was never intended to marry him. Sent from Spain at the age of 16, she was intended for Henry’s older brother Arthur. When Arthur died shortly after their marriage she instead married Henry and bore him a daughter, Mary. Catherine was older than Henry and struggled to have more children, and a rift grew between them as he cheated more and more frequently. Henry went to extraordinary lengths to divorce Catherine, including leaving the Catholic Church and founding the protestant Church of England (which ushered in an era of violent religious instability in the U.K. for centuries). Catherine is played with spunk and charisma by Adrianna Hicks. I appreciated her no-holds-barred attitude, perfectly befitting what I imagine to be the inner dialogue of a queen who was constantly overlooked and passed around without her will throughout her life.
- Anne Boleyn: Anne Boleyn has been thoroughly castigated in history as a seductive, husband-stealing, six-fingered witch. I have always thought she got short shrift and am thankful that her story is finally being re-written by historians. Anne was the woman Henry incurred his first divorce to marry. She mothered the indisputably great Queen Elizabeth 1 and was known for being plain spoken and willful. I love her backbone and that she was one of the few people to publicly fight against Henry in his time, and she was accomplished – fighting to pass a bill helping the poor and homeless and writing the now-famous song Greensleeves. Anne was tragically beheaded after being successfully accused of adultery, but she went down swinging. Her fuck you attitude is delightfully rendered here by Andrea Macasaet in a wry, pointed performance that had me in stitches. I dare you to leave Macasaet’s performance without at least changing your mind about Anne Boleyn, if not loving her a little more than the others.
- Jane Seymour: Allegedly the only wife Henry VIII ever loved, Jane is also the only wife who bore him a son. She was quickly (and for her I’m sure, terrifyingly) betrothed to him only the day after Anne Boleyn was violently beheaded, and died shortly after birthing Edward VI. Jane is a little more boring than the others on the surface, but her real life had some tragic elements. Her character in Six is therefore the most ballad-oriented, and her solo was beautifully sung by understudy Mallory Maedke. Maedke puts some dynamism it what could have been a snoozy role for me, and she was a few audience members’ clear favorite by the end of the night.
- Anna of Cleves: Anna was the luckiest of Henry VIII’s wives and it happened completely by accident. Needing a wife after Jane’s tragic death, Henry VIII solicited portraits of eligible ladies from around Europe and selected Anna’s (a wealthy German royal) after determining it was the prettiest. The trouble was that her real-life appearance and demeanor did not match the glow-up given in her portrait, and Henry VIII was totally turned off after actually meeting her in person. They were briefly married but quickly divorced so Henry VIII could seek greener pastures, meaning Anna was left to enjoy a single life of great wealth in not one but two palaces with the freedom to do however she chose. I saw understudy Nicole Kyoung-Mi Lambert play Anna in Six. While I think she was the weakest vocally of the crew, she was indisputably the comedic highlight. I loved watching her confidently strut around the stage and gain the ultimate life of a royal wife, which felt like a much deserved win for at least one of these ladies.
- Katherine Howard: Katherine is perhaps the most-forgotten of Henry VIII’s wives. A cousin of Anne Boleyn’s, Katherine married Henry VIII at the ripe old age of 17 (he was 49, hmmmmm) in the same year he divorced Anna of Cleves. Unfortunately she met the same ill fate as her cousin: successfully accused of adultery and beheaded for it. Katherine always seemed to have the least amount of choice in her fate of all of Henry VIII’s wives, and her fury at that lack of agency is wonderfully portrayed by Samantha Pauly. Pauly has all the attitude of a 10 Things I Hate About You‘s Julia Styles, and her solo really hits home how little choice the women of the Tudor era had to control their own fates.
- Catherine Parr: The only wife to outlive Henry VIII in their marriage, Catherine Parr had a long life outside of her relationship to the king. She was highly educated and a political force, publishing books, creating educational programs for women, and generally leading a rich and interesting life. Catherine is played brilliantly by Anna Uzele in what was undoubtedly the musical highlight of the entire show. As I recently saw so wisely stated on Instagram, “There are people who can sing, and there are people who can sang.” Uzele is firmly in the all-caps SANG camp, whipping out a dynamic voice that is supple as a knife and powerful as a hurricane. Time stopped during her solo and I can’t wait to see her career explode; she has all the potential of an Audra McDonald, a true vocal star.
All the ladies sing beautifully in complex six part harmonies throughout the show. They are backed up by a kickass all-female band (appropriately dubbed the “Ladies in Waiting”) comprised of Julia Schade conducting on keys, Michelle Osbourne anchoring on bass, Kimi Hayes shredding on guitar, and Elena Bonomo killing it on the drums. It warmed my heart to see a stage filled with 100% badass lady musicians, and these girls more than hold their own on the instrumental front.
Because the story is told as a concert, there’s no moving set pieces – just a compelling staging that you could easily place at a Coachella-style festival, designed by Emma Bailey. Dynamic lighting from Tim Deiling enhances that effect, and the choreography by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille reflects your favorite girl groups on stage. Far and away my favorite part of the production design were the clever costumes designed by Gabriella Slade. Each queen wears a modernized riff on Tudor wear, with gowns slashed to mini-skirt length, leathery leggings, and tough accents like spiked crowns and studded boots (which, mercifully, were not sky high heels for once, allowing the actresses to actually dance and move on stage. More costume design by women for women please!!). I would happily wear any of those outfits as a Halloween costume or frankly just on a date night – let’s hope it inspires some creative designer-to-commercial releases.
If there’s only one thing I can be grateful to Hamilton for (and there are many), it’s that its wild success has completely demolished the idea that history is boring and people don’t care about it. History is filled with fascinating stories, especially of groups like women and people of color that are so often erased in textbooks, and those stories deserve their time on stage. Six was a delightful flip of the historical script, finally putting the focus where it was always due: on the extraordinary women who had to survive and thrive in an era where they had very few options to do so. This staging is beautifully executed and had the normally staid Ordway audience out of their seats, on their feet and totally committed to enjoying this concert. It also challenges the lie that these shows have to be long to be good; Six clocks in at barely 90 minutes and was very well received. Six is a little part Spice Girls, a little part Chicago, a little part Hamilton, and 100% fantastic. It’s going to be a huge success once it hits Broadway, so make sure to see it right here at home before it’s expensive and hard to do so. Click here to nab tickets before Six closes at the Ordway on December 22.