From Shakespeare’s plays to history’s texts, the wives of King Henry VIII have long been eclipsed by the corpulent shadow of their royal husband. The brutally reductive rhyme delivered with thunderous portent at the top of the Tony Award-winning musical “Six” labels them accordingly: Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived.
But that bit of doggerel is only the tip of the iceberg in the musical by Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow. In a breathless 80-minutes, “Six” reframes the lives of Catherine of Aragon (divorced), Anne Boleyn (beheaded), Jane Seymour (died), Anna of Cleves (divorced), Katherine Howard (beheaded) and Catherine Parr (survived), giving them the agency that evaded them in life.
In presenting the queens as contemporary pop stars and giving each one a killer solo, “Six” has the women sashaying into their own. Running through July 14 at the James M. Nederlander theater, “Six” is a fascinating history lesson presented with the vibe of a high-octane pop concert infused with the dazzle of a Vegas-themed coronation and filtered through retrospect of the #MeToo movement.
Polished to a high gloss by directors Moss and Jamie Armitage, “Six” remains an electrifying triumph some five years after its U.S. premiere at Chicago Shakespeare Theater in 2019.
With whip-smart, pop-culture infused lyrics, the show references everything from Lutheranism to the Spice Girls to 16th century portraitist-to-the-stars Hans Holbein to Tinder. Still, the show has more on its mind than salacious Tudor-era celebrity gossip.
The musical is structured as a singing competition to determine which queen King Henry (who is never seen on stage) tortured and traumatized the most. Each woman gets a song to make her case. The women decide that the winner gets to be lead singer. There’s a meta-twist at the end that has the potential to be didactic and clunky, but the cast sells it with mega-watt charisma.
We hear from the six in chronological order of their marriages, starting with a massive banger from Catherine of Aragon (Kristina Leopold). “No Way” swerves from rage and defiance to wrenching pathos inside the space of a few choruses. Leopold knocks it into the gods.
Cassie Silva’s Anne Boleyn has the giddy energy of a young teenager — which she was when Henry brought her from her home in France to his court. The fizzy, frivolous innocence she brings to “Don’t Lose Ur Head” turns the number into a wonderful ear worm. But like Katherine Howard (Taylor Sage Evans opening night, in for Alize Cruz) in “All You Wanna Do,” the number shows how innocence can be mercilessly preyed on and destroyed.
With the soaring ballad “Heart of Stone” Kelly Denice Taylor’s Jane Seymour unleashes a voice that could fill a cathedral. Seymour — supposedly Henry’s one true love — died in childbirth roughly a year into their marriage. Taylor lets you hear her sorrow and her passion.
Anna of Cleves (Danielle Mendoza) turns the heat up to scorching with “Get Down,” a stomping, strutting ode to savvy pre-nuptial agreements and financial independence. (Cleves got a castle and a substantial income of her own after Henry cast her aside for Katherine Howard.) As Catherine Parr, Adriana Scalice brings the competition to a close with “I Don’t Need Your Love,” a number that begins as a gentle, lilting lullaby that builds and crescendos into an anthem.
Carrie-Anne Ingrouille’s precise, bold choreography features a range of styles that you can easily imagine on a pop concert stage. Gabriella Slade’s gleaming, jewel-toned costumes — massively zhuzhed-up interpretations of the panniers, ruffs, and corsetry of Henry VIII’s era, topped by spiky crowns that look like weapons — are the sartorial equivalent of fireworks.
The cast is accompanied by the Ladies in Waiting, a small but mighty onstage band directed by keyboardist Jane Cardona and featuring bassist Sterlyn Termine, guitarist Rose Laguana and drummer Kami Lujan.
“Six” has amped-up the glitz considerably since its time on Navy Pier. The set features Gothic arches framed in blazing neon lights. Throughout, lighting designer Tim Deiling’s kaleidoscope of colors provides visual exclamation points.
Reimagined as pop icons, the women of “Six” turn the party and the pages of history in a show with endless appeal whether you’re a Tudor scholar, a devotee of girl groups or some wondrous amalgamation of both.
