Hilary Mantel's towering achievement--"Wolf Hall"--shows how the Tudors both were and were not "like us." The abuse of power, the scheming, the lust--all of this feels "modern." At the same time, Mantel's characters seem to exist in another galaxy; many have fervent beliefs in the supernatural, and many seem to think that the monarch really does have a direct line to God.
The musical "Six," which never explicitly alludes to Mantel, does owe a clear debt to Mantel. The most effective segment zeroes in on Anne Boleyn, a recognizably modern figure. Boleyn--sounding a bit like Avril Lavigne--complains that Henry "messages" her all the time. When she decides to flirt back, she becomes impatient with the specter of Catherine of Aragon.
Could somebody just *hang* her?
He *doesn't* want to bang her.
Later, annoyed by Henry's infidelity, Anne petulantly spreads a rumor that the King is impotent. And so she is executed. All of this sounds a bit like Trump turning on Mike Pence.
By contrast, for me, the Jane Seymour section doesn't entirely work. Henry has just murdered a human being--for no real reason. Seymour begins her interlude by saying, "Henry, you've got a good heart." This is such nonsense that it suggests Seymour has recently endured a lobotomy. It might be intriguing if Seymour were then played in such a way--if she seemed out of her mind--but we're meant to see her as a sane, intelligent person, drowning in romantic love. I prefer Mantel's version, where Seymour is crafty and beady-eyed (and living in a complex called "Wolf Hall"). It seems to me that the writers of "Six" did not look closely at Seymour's character--and, though they wrote an effective power ballad (one that ought to have netted a Tony nomination for Abby Mueller), they did not make a persuasive case that these words of love would actually tumble from Seymour's mouth. (If Seymour said anything like the words of "Heart of Stone," I suspect she would have been making use of subtext, and you won't find subtext in Abby Mueller's admittedly powerful performance.)
In any case, "Six" has fun with an original idea, it invents memorable songs, and it hands meaty material to charismatic performers. There is a reason that it has survived the worst days of COVID. Its writers are worthy of anyone's attention.
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