This past week we crept back, getting close to hitting our pre-pandemic numbers for theater attendance. As an exercise in collective effervescence the more people that are in the group for our audiences the higher the energy and the more rewarding the experience. This is a good and lovely thing and nothing makes me happier than energy bouncing around on the sidewalk as we prepare to enter the theater.
We saw what ostensibly would be considered two very different shows:
Clyde’s: A play by Lynn Nottage about formally incarcerated individuals re-immersing themselves into society while employed at a road side sandwich shop with a challenging boss named Clyde. The set was brightly lit and hued in oranges and reds. It was practically the sixth character in the show. Clyde’s cornucopia of elaborate and deliberate costume changes are alone worth it to consider viewing this how.
SIX: The musical brought to us by shooting stars Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow about the six dead wives of Henry the VIII who share their sides of their not pretty marriage stories via peppy pop songs. Divorced. Beheaded. Died. Divorced. Beheaded. Survived. The set was simple and swathed in purple with the musical accompaniments – The Ladies in Waiting on the stage. The costumes were elaborate and sparkly and fierce and the choreography was clever and fast paced.
For Clyde’s we had a group of 26 and for SIX we amassed a group of 60. We deliberately had these shows in the same week as we believed the Clyde’s folks and the SIX folks would self-select and there would be very little crossover. We were right – there were exactly 3 people who signed on for both (including me!). In hindsight what should have been wildly different offerings, these shows share a myriad of thematic similarities. Oh Broadway you sly, sly minx always surprising us and making us think.
To name a few:
- Oppression – one in the form of a power happy and jaded sandwich shop owner named Clyde (with a natty wardrobe) and the other a wife swapping fickle king we all know as Henry the VIII (who also enjoyed the finery of robe fashion).
- Station in Life– the formerly incarcerated staff in the sandwich shop has no choice but to accept this grim form of employment as it is quite literally the only place that will accept them. The wives in SIX lives are also stymied by their gender and subsequent narrow opportunities for advancement besides what a marriage can or cannot offer.
- The human need for purpose – my favorite part in Clyde’s was when the staff would proudly muse over their concoction of the perfect sandwich as if this achievement would be a way out of their powerless positions. The Queens in SIX? Boldly did what they could to forge their accomplishments and fulfill their needs within the narrow confines of their role.
- Vindication – In Clyde’s our oppressed workers find a salvation of sorts while Clyde devilishly gets to have her sandwich and eat it too. Our Queens get their due by offering an alternative and satisfying re-write of their histories to a by now super enthusiastic audience. You go Queens!!
Both offerings also offer whip smart and crackling dialogue for Clyde’s and lyrics for SIX. And both offerings received some hooting and hollering standing ovations at the end. While the two shows tackle some pretty challenging and gritty content, they do it in an infectiously comedic and manageable for the psyche way. Absolutely Grab Your Group & GO experience BOTH satisfying shows on Broadway NOW!!!
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Love this! Comparative literature via Broadway
aw thanks for reading and yes and not a comparison I expected to be making!!