REVIEW: SIX (National Theatre)
Preview: SIX was actually the last show I saw pre-pandemic. It was January 2020 — I was still living in Australia and my partner was at the tail-end of a month-long visit. I had heard buzzing of the show from various theatre outlets, and how this feminist history romp was taking over the virtual airwaves with Gen Z; particularly in its home of the UK, where it had just been nominated for five awards at 2019 Oliviers. It was touring Oz at this time, and happened to have landed in Sydney right before my partner was to leave the country. We grabbed some SRO tickets for the Sydney Opera House’s smallest theatre, an alcove on the western flank of the iconic hall. We were in the very back, leaning against some rails behind probably 300 people. Who could have thought that two months later this would be completely incomprehensible? Fast forward two years, A Lot has happened, SIX has finally opened — it was due to open on Broadway the same day the industry shut down — and is well into its first U.S. tour. I, bored on a Friday night, entered the lottery for its 8 week residency at The National Theatre in downtown DC. And I won! $30 tickets for a hot show like this? I’ll take it, even if I have seen it before. Also, some pretext: as an American, before seeing it in Sydney, I was not at all familiar with the tale of Henry VIII’s wives. I didn’t know the pneumonic device that the show marketing is based on (“divorced, beheaded, died,” etc). I had heard some of the names in certain contexts, but overall, this was all foreign. Take this as you will. I was especially interested in what changes, if any, were made to the book in its American iteration. If I didn’t know anything about the Queens, I certainly could not have been the only one.
ACTING: SIX has the same number of cast members. They simply ARE the show: it’s for, by, and about these women and how they were impacted by Henry VIII. This works pretty well with its concert-style staging (more on that later), and the book of course gives each one* her time to shine. It is by all means an ensemble piece, and I support those on the r/Broadway and BWW forums calling for some sort of Tony recognition for group performances. However, I did consider some, two in particular, to stand out, in different ways. Let’s start with Khalia Wilcoxon as Catherin of Aragon, the first queen in the lineup. I was familiar with Wilcoxon’s work as an understudy for Eurydice in the original Broadway production of Hadestown, so I was pleased to see I’d get to see her perform in earnest. To put it frankly, she killed it. I’ve always thought a stage actor is only as good as what they’re doing when the attention is not on them in a scene, and she hugely delivers with hilarious melodrama and cartoonish expressions that sometimes don’t look naturally possible. Between her Real Housewives tearjerker impressions, her snarky eyebrow wriggles, gasps of offended astonishment, she is a walking expression model and was one of my favorite parts of the show. Of course, she also has lungs. “No Way”, the first solo number of the show, sets the bar pretty high. A firey latin-pop inspired earworm, the Beyonce-inspired swagger she carries around the stage during this number really gets you thinking that this has to be the HBIC. On the other end of the spectrum, I found her follow-up, Anne Boelyn (Storm Lever), comparatively lacking both in range and in drama. I think as a stage musical disguised as a pop concert, I was expecting the melodrama from everyone to be at the same level as Catherine. This does not mean she was bad, by any means, but Wilcoxon’s performance stood out immediately and nobody really caught up, especially Levers’, whose consistent interjections about their beheading got old quickly as well. The rest of the queens were a hoot, but special commendation has to be given to Olivia Donaldson’s Anna of Cleeves, whose bubbly Lizzo-esque persona was always fun to see, and really made Haus of Holbein/Get Down the showstoppers they were. 8/10
PRODUCTION: My number one concern about this show after seeing it in Sydney was the scale. This is supposed to be a concert with six singers and a four-piece band. No fancy set pieces, no transitions, on-stage locomotives. Just a main stage, some small platforms for the band, and a slightly elevated one in the back. It felt like seeing [insert favorite band here] at 9:30 Club when I first saw it, which I felt was a perfect setting. It was raw, it was intimate, and for the sendoff medley (known as “Megasix”), the audience was encouraged to record the damn thing on their phones like an actual concert. How was this supposed to translate to a 1000-seat Rialto playhouse, much less a larger touring playhouse with 700 more seats? The kicker here is that my lottery ticket happened to be center orch, so I can’t tell you what it would be like in rear balc, but the sound quality was pretty good and the choreo is lively enough to get a good idea of things from afar (I presume — do correct me if you’ve seen the show from farther away and disagree). Speaking of getting a look at things: the choreography is an electric modern pop spectacle, with dynamic bounces and bops that work to express the queens individually and as a group. The main visual element, though, and one I would argue is its most iconic element: the costumes. The colorfully industrial Tudor dresses donned by the heroines are flashy, over-the-top, and as eye-catching as you can get. And they are so, Damn. Good. I’ve seen lots of character designers from my rumblings among professionals on Animation Twitter that have not even come close to a design as cool as these. The one (1) major costume change that happens, during Haus of Holbein, was humorously placed and I am glad they limited it to the one use. The band behind them casually looking like Y2K ravers during this number was also particularly entertaining. Lighting was nothing to write home about; it fit the pop concert vibe well, but did not do anything bewildering. 7/10
BOOK & MUSIC: There’s a reason this thing is as big as it is, even through the pandemic: it’s soundtrack. The premise of the show is good enough, in that the six wives are trying to figure out who suffered the most, but what skyrocketed it to fame was its nine-track barrage of girlbossing, slay-queening earworms. My first listen, I was not that into it. When I saw it in Sydney, I was into it a little. This time, I really came to enjoy the soundtrack and what Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss have done. I’m a huge fan of wordplay and puns, for starters. Lin-Manuel Miranda and Stephen Sondheim kick-started my theatre obsession, and given I was almost a linguistics major in school, playing with language in clever ways is an instant way to win me over. The fact that “live in consort” is in the very first song of this show should tell you all you need to know about the wonderfully punny lyricism you’re about to hear for the next hour. My chief complaint about the score is “All You Wanna Do” — Katherine Howard’s jam about her history of being abused and taken advantage of for her looks all her life, culminating in a crushing realization of her status in the male gaze. This is a great track - an amazing look into the grim history of women’s status in royalty, and easily the show’s darkest number. What bothers me isn’t the song itself, but how it is placed. It evolves from a jubilant, high-confidence dance track to something genuinely sad, only to be abruptly cut off by some comic relief from Boelyn (yet another example of the beheading jokes being reused too much). It is quite the whiplash for the show to suddenly tell you to forget about all that trauma she just spilled, so that we can get on with it. 6/10
VISDEV: Serif font? Check. Royal purple? Check. Crown? Check. Offset lettering? Check. Sparkles? Check. The logo itself does a good job telling you a few things: it’s about royalty, it’s not a super-serious show, and that it’s glamorous. Glad to get this out of the way. When I saw it in Sydney, the pre-show setup was an open stage, where you could see all of the platforms as the band were playing chamber music covers of modern pop songs. I thought it was a great touch then, and I still do: you think it’s just normal old-timey music until you realize that something is oddly familiar about it, and then you realize it’s actually a cover of “Senorita”. Amazing stuff. On tour, it’s pre-recorded, but in Sydney the band was doing it themselves. I’ll take what I can get! For this show the stage was also not initially visible, covered by a purple and gold stage curtain. Personally, I like seeing my stage in the open, but at least it was creative. The queens, despite being a British show about British royalty, were all American, and it avoided a culture shock that I was expecting. Not everyone can speak, let alone sing, in-accent, so I am glad they didn’t. In fact, they went hard with the Americanness of it. The pre-show “turn your phones off” spiel included the word “y’all”, which was enough for me. There was even a PBS reference! Shouts out PBS. 8/10
VERDICT: The touring version of the UK’s answer to Hamilton is still a great time, with minor tweaks to match the new audience that don’t take away from the incredible ensemble and addictive soundtrack. While not totally perfect, it’s still a unique and fabulous way to spend a night at the theatre.
