Reviewed by:

• Sixby Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss
• Horacio Sierra

In a theatrical landscape regularly awash with jukebox musicals that cull the catalogs of big-name pop artists such as ABBA, Alanis Morrissette, Gloria Estefan, the Go-Gos, and more, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss's Sixarrived on Broadway with an original score of radio-friendly hooks, TikTok-ready dance moves, and a racially diverse cast of tabloid-worthy divas that gave legitimate pop stars a run for their money. The musical's selling point is that its supersonic score takes inspiration from King Henry VIII's six wives as much as it does the pop sirens of the last twenty years. This dynamic combination gave the audience the chance to veer from silently thanking their high school history teachers for giving them the ability to laugh at puns about the Protestant Reformation to priding themselves for recognizing choreography indebted to Beyoncé's "Formation." By amalgamating the academic humor of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)with the rhetoric of superficial third-wave feminist pop stars, Sixcreated a frothy but provocative musical that offered bespoke narratives for sixteenth-century women whose travails are all the more relevant in the #MeToo era. Whether on London's West End or the various cruise ships where Sixwas staged before it debuted on Broadway, its creators proved that they found a formula that caters to an audience of pop music–loving millennials and Generation Zers who, in a post-Madonna cultural landscape, are liable to see Catherine of Aragon, Gloria Steinem, and Selena Gomez as equals in the feminist canon.

Like a Black Pink music video, Six's plot was threadbare but straightforward enough: the women form a girl group and each one is competing to become the sextet's lead singer. The sole criterion for becoming the leader is winning the audience's applause by proving they suffered the most during their marriage to King Henry VIII. The competition format is more akin to the messy politics of twenty-first-century reality TV shows that pit women against one another rather than the sororal communities portrayed in actual early modern literary works such as Christine de Pizan's City of Ladies(1405), María de Zayas's Desenagños amorosos(1647), and Margaret Cavendish's The Convent of Pleasure(1688). The show's earnest though superficial take on feminist discourse attempts to mirror Zayas's work wherein a safe space is created for women to be candid about the ways in which men belittle, deceive, and murder them without repercussions in a patriarchal society.

Six's opening number, "Ex-Wives," encapsulates how the show borrows from the historical lore of England, Broadway, and pop music. Each character is given a verse to flesh out the details of the dreary-but-catchy refrain of "divorced, beheaded, died / divorced, beheaded, survived" à la the imprisoned women of Chicagoin "Cell Block Tango." But unlike the "merry murderesses of the Cook County Jail," these women were unable to exact revenge on their husband.

Catherine of Aragon's (Adrianna Hicks) stature as a regal Queen Bee was solidified with its keen homage to Beyoncé at her peak with the fist-pumping "No Way." But more could have been made of how Earth-shattering her divorce was. As the daughter of Europe's most powerful royals, Spain's Catholic monarchs Fernando and Isabel, Catherine was a queen among queens. Her fierce devotion to the Roman Catholic Church and twenty-four-year marriage to the king proved her as a loyal steward of traditional monarchies. Henry's divorce from Catherine ensured that England, Europe, and the world would never be the same as the Reformation ushered in religious wars, geopolitical standoffs, and a refreshing stream of liberal intellectual discourse.

Anne Boleyn, played by the addictively charming Andrea Macasaet, garnered hearty laughter every [End Page 77]time she reminded the other wives and audience about the horrors of being beheaded. Lily Allenesque lines such as "The rules were so outdated / Us two wanted...

审核人：

• 六托比马洛和露西莫斯
• 奥拉西奥·塞拉

在一个经常充斥着点唱机音乐剧的戏剧景观中，这些音乐剧精选了 ABBA、Alanis Morrissette、Gloria Estefan、Go-Gos 等知名流行艺术家的目录，还有 Toby Marlow 和 Lucy Moss 的《六人组》来到百老汇时，他们带着对电台友好的原始乐曲、适合 TikTok 的舞蹈动作，以及种族多元化的小报女主角阵容，让合法的流行歌星为他们的钱而奔波。这部音乐剧的卖点是它的超音速配乐从亨利八世国王的六个妻子中汲取灵感，就像它从过去二十年的流行警笛中汲取灵感一样。这种动态的组合让观众有机会从默默地感谢他们的高中历史老师让他们有能力嘲笑有关新教改革的双关语，转向为承认对碧昂丝的“阵型”负责的编舞而自豪。通过将威廉莎士比亚全集（删节）的学术幽默与肤浅的第三波女权主义流行歌星的言辞相结合，六人创作了一部充满泡沫但具有挑衅性的音乐剧，为 16 世纪的女性提供了定制的故事，她们的苦难在#MeToo 时代更为相关。无论是在伦敦西区，还是在百老汇首演前曾上演过《六号》的各种游轮上，其创作者都证明了他们找到了一种适合流行音乐的千禧一代和 Z 世代观众的模式，他们在后麦当娜文化中景观，很容易看到阿拉贡的凯瑟琳，格洛丽亚斯坦纳姆和赛琳娜戈麦斯在女权主义经典中是平等的。

就像 Black Pink 音乐录影带一样，Six的情节陈旧但足够简单：女性组成了一个女团，每个人都在竞争成为六重奏的主唱。成为领导者的唯一标准是通过证明他们在与国王亨利八世的婚姻中遭受的痛苦最大来赢得观众的掌声。竞争形式更类似于 21 世纪真人秀节目中的混乱政治，让女性相互对抗，而不是像克里斯蒂娜·德·皮赞 (Christine de Pizan) 的《女士之城》 (1405)、玛丽亚等早期现代文学作品中描绘的姐妹社区。 de Zayas 的Desenagños amorosos (1647) 和 Margaret Cavendish 的The Convent of Pleasure（1688 年）。该节目对女权主义话语的认真但肤浅的看法试图反映 Zayas 的作品，其中为女性创造了一个安全的空间，让她们能够坦诚面对男性在父权社会中轻视、欺骗和谋杀她们的方式，而不会产生任何影响。

Six的开场曲“Ex-Wives”概括了该节目如何借鉴英格兰、百老汇和流行音乐的历史传说。每个角色都有一段诗句，以充实“离婚，斩首，死亡/离婚，斩首，幸存”的沉闷但引人入胜的副歌的细节，就像“牢房探戈”中被囚禁的芝加哥女性一样。但与“库克县监狱的快乐杀人犯”不同，这些妇女无法对丈夫进行报复。

阿拉贡的凯瑟琳（阿德里安娜·希克斯饰）作为帝王蜂王的地位在碧昂丝的巅峰时期以拳头十足的“No Way”向她致敬。但更多的可能是她的离婚是多么惊天动地。作为欧洲最有权势的皇室成员，西班牙天主教君主费尔南多和伊莎贝尔的女儿，凯瑟琳是王后中的王后。她对罗马天主教会的热爱以及与国王长达 24 年的婚姻证明了她是传统君主制的忠实管家。亨利与凯瑟琳的离婚确保了英格兰、欧洲和世界永远不会像宗教改革带来的宗教战争、地缘政治僵局和令人耳目一新的自由思想话语流一样。

Anne Boleyn 由迷人的 Andrea Macasaet 扮演，每次[End Page 77]提醒其他妻子和观众关于被斩首的恐怖时，都会获得爽朗的笑声。Lily Allenesque 台词，​​例如“规则已经过时/我们两个想要...