Six Broadway Review: The Real Housewives of Henry VIII Put on a Show – Yahoo Entertainment

The COVID-19 pandemic dealt Six a particularly cruel blow. The pop musical was to make its Broadway debut at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on March 12, 2020, when, just hours before curtain, New York declared a state of emergency and banned all gatherings of more than 500 people.

The show, which finally opened at the Brooks Atkinson on Sunday, had been making the rounds even before the pandemic with performances in London and, apparently, everywhere else on Earth. When I first saw the show a year and a half ago, I invited a friend to join me but she turned me down. I already saw it on a Norwegian Bliss cruise, she replied. When did Broadway become a shows final resting place?

Sometimes musicals travel well (or, at least, travel a lot) because theyre simple to produce. For instance, Six requires only six actors and a band of four. Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss score is immediately hummable in the way that only derivative disco music can be. The often witty book, built around a competition among the six wives of Henry VIII, borrows a lot from RuPauls Drag Race while offering yet another #MeToo story. Those theatrical commonplaces aside, Six is a needed antidote to Anastasia, Frozen, Jagged Little Pill, Wicked and other pompous shows of female empowerment.

Marlow and Moss songs, while rip-offs of dance hits, serve as parodies of power anthems like Defying Gravity and Let It Go. A breathtakingly irreverent moment in Six comes when the six wives get into an argument over who was the most abused and try to top each other with their respective number of miscarriages. Talk about defying political correctness!

Emma Baileys set, Gabriella Slades costumes and Tim Deilings lighting neatly replicate a Vegas concert under Moss and Jamie Armitages tight direction. Its nice to see the six singing actors carry hand mics rather than wear those horrible around-the-jaw contraptions. Theyve been cast for their singing voices, all of which are strong.

Story continues

A disappointment is Carrie-Anne Ingrouillles choreography. At moments, the women turn into one well-oiled human machine, matching each others steps and gestures. But Six never achieves the dance excitement of Aint Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations at its best. Only Brittney Mack (as a sassy Anna of Cleves) is a real dancer.

The other five wives are played by Adrianna Hicks (a grand Catherine of Aragon), Andrea Macasaet (a perky Anne Boleyn), Abby Mueller (a maternal Jane Seymour), Samantha Pauly (a cool Katherine Howard) and Anna Uzele (a super-sexy Catherine Parr).

At the matinee I attended, something very encouraging happened. Near the end of Six, one of the wives announces that there are only five minutes left in the show. No sooner did these six women then launch into their final song than a dozen adolescent girls got up from their seats in the third row of the orchestra and promptly leave the Brooks Atkinson Theatre en masse!

Who among them cared that their parents had taken out a mortgage to pay for all those premium seats? Theyd seen enough. Are young women finally tired of being pandered to by Broadway musicals?

Here is the original post:

Six Broadway Review: The Real Housewives of Henry VIII Put on a Show - Yahoo Entertainment