Review: SIX National Tour at Durham Performing Arts Center

Six reimagines the stories of the six wives of King Henry VIII in the style of a pop concert. Each ex-wife gets to sing and tell her story to determine who suffered the most from marrying Henry and should therefore become the group’s lead singer. This musical originally began as a submission to the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland by two Cambridge University students, Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss. Since then, the show made its way to London’s West End, where it earned five 2019 Laurence Olivier Award nominations (including Best New Musical).

Six began previews on February 13th, 2020 at the Brooks Atkinson (now Lena Horne) Theatre on Broadway. On March 12th of that year, it was literally hours away from opening when performances all over the New York theatre district got suspended due to COVID-19. On October 3rd, 2021, Six became the first new musical production to have officially opened on Broadway following the year and a half long shutdown. The show received 8 Tony Award nominations (including Best Musical) and is still running successfully in New York.

Under the direction of Lucy Moss & Jamie Armitage, everything is perfectly staged as a pop concert. The musical numbers are given such dynamic choreography by Carrie-Annie Ingrouille. Tim Deiling’s lighting is incredible. The costumes designed by Gabriella Slade are very stylish. There’s an onstage band playing Tom Curran’s killer orchestrations of Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss’ killer score. Paul Gatehouse’s sound design also does give you the feel of being at a concert very well. All six of the ex-wives get their own opportunities to shine. Marlow & Moss’ book provides some back and forth banter between characters. Separately, they each deliver their own monologues and songs about their backstories, which you can also read about in your playbills.

Gerianne Pérez, who plays Catherine of Aragon (divorced), performs an energetic number titled ‘No Way’ quite excellently. Zan Berube, who plays Anne Boleyn (beheaded), has an amusing song titled ‘Don’t Lose Ur Head,’ which gets quite a bit of laughs from the audience. Amina Faye, who plays Jane Seymour (died), gets a soul-baring song titled ‘Heart of Stone,’ which is a standout to me. Celina Snow, who went on for Terica Marie as Anna of Cleves (divorced) at the performance I was in attendance for, gets a very hip number titled ‘Get Down,’ which brings the house down. Aline Mayagoitia, who plays Katherine Howard (behead), brings in a lot of energy with her song, All You Wanna Do.’ Sydney Parra, who plays Catherine Parr (survived), brings a lot of emotion to a heartfelt number as the last wife standing with ‘I Don’t Need Your Love.’

Just when you think that a story where most of the characters don’t receive such a happy ending could be serious, that is not the case with this. Six proves to be both highly entertaining and funny at certain points. At such a tight 80 minute duration with no intermission, this musical is such a great time. An awesome remix of history that should be accessible to all audiences. The national tour is currently playing at the Durham Performing Arts Center through July 2nd.

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For more information, please visit:
https://www.dpacnc.com/events/detail/six-the-musical-2023
https://sixonbroadway.com/north-american-tours

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