Rewriting history
Yesterday, I finally had a chance to see Six, the hit Broadway musical that premiered in 2022 after its initial opening was delayed by Covid. In a wave of excitement months ago, I had suggested to friends that it might be fun to see the show—which is about the six wives of Henry VIII—to celebrate the election of our first female President.
Well, you know how that turned out.
Of course, having already bought the tickets, we went to the show anyway, and Six wasn’t what I expected either. I try not to read too much about shows before seeing them, preferring to experience the music and story without the filter of some critic’s opinion. I do like to read the reviews afterwards though, to see how my experience comported with that of people more immersed in the theatrical world.
Six isn’t an entirely feminist musical; as Jesse Green noted in the New York Times, the story is built “on a contest of female degradation.” (You can find the review here.) In this modern retelling of history, the six wives compete not just as singers but also to see which of them suffered the most. In the language of the show—which of them was “dealt the worst hand”? You might assume the two wives who ended up beheaded (Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard) would win that competition easily, but the show makes a pretty good case that the other four also suffered profoundly.
Not exactly the uplifting message I had hoped for.
Even so, the show does something important. As the New York Times observed, Six has found “an accessible, youthful way to talk about women, abuse and power.” Those are vital subjects we need to talk about, now more than ever.
Somewhat surprisingly, the show also ends on a relatively upbeat note, emphasizing that the women were taking back their own stories, refusing to be characterized exclusively by the one thing they had in common: their husband. If anything, the women conclude, history has ultimately defined Henry, the supposedly all-powerful king, by his relationship with them.
Which got me thinking on the subway ride home. Henry had Anne Boleyn beheaded in 1536, almost 500 years ago. Yes, women have made a lot of social, legal, and political progress since that time. As just one, ridiculously small example, there are actually two Broadway shows currently running that celebrate an aspect of women’s history, Six and Suffs, a musical about the women’s suffrage movement. But Suffs will be closing on January 5, 2025, and as the Dobbs decision and incoming administration have made clear, any progress women have made is exceedingly fragile. How history will be written about the women of our era is, to some degree, up to us. Let’s not have to wait 500 years to take it back.