It did seem like a clever idea, for at least five seconds:  Use the Broadway musical “Six” — in which the six wives of Henry VIII compete to determine whom he treated the worst – as a model for “Five,” a pastiche musical featuring Donald Trump’s three wives, plus his daughter Ivanka, and Stormy Daniels, the porn actress at the center of the “hush money” court case scheduled to begin March 25, which marks the first criminal trial in history of a former American president. This comes after the recent court case involving E. Jean Carroll (who’s not a character in the show), in which a federal judge ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million to Carroll, after juries determined he sexually abused and then defamed her.

Given such news of late, it’s increasingly difficult for me to appreciate, or even tolerate, a trivial show like “Five.” The creative team hasn’t read the room. (ie “I’ve Told My Last Trump Joke” an essay in the New York Times by the humorist who coined the Trump epithet “short-fingered vulgarian.”)  But even those who still view political humor as political armor will be disappointed, because “Five” seems little interested in Trump’s treatment of women, much less his threat to American democracy; instead, its main target is “Six.”  As political commentary, “Five” is near witless, tasteless, and toothless. But even just as a parody of “Six,” it’s too on the nose. If some theatergoers will find “Five” entertaining, I suspect it’ll largely be because its talented six-member cast makes the most of the moments in the show that add up to a stealth, second-rate “Forbidden Broadway.”

 The opening number in “Five” begins exactly as in “Six,” with a loud rock riff, arena lighting, the female characters standing with their back to the audience, then turning to face us one by one. In “Six,” each of the queens sums up her fate in a single word:

Divorced
Beheaded
Died
Divorced
Beheaded
Survived

then
“And tonight, New York City, we are…”
“…LIVE!”

In “Five,” we hear:

Ivana: Divorced
Stormy: Gave head
Marla: Fired
Ivana: Divorced
Stormy: Gave Head
Melania: Hired
Marla: And tonight we are…
All: Five

This one-to-one correlation is less smart than studied. It feels… off – as does the banner under which the performance is taking place: “Make America Slay Again”

In the first of the dozen musical numbers, the characters purport to tell us why “Five” exists:

Marla  (Gabriella Joy Rodriguez):  Broadway is boring us with Henry’s queens.
Ivana (Anyae Anasia): Been kinda dull vatching Broadvay’s sheet
Melania (Jaime Lyn Beatty): We decided King Donald’s da perfect fit.

But it’s actually an imperfect fit. “Five” is not an exercise in female empowerment; the women in Trump’s lives are most often mocked.  Nor is it a takedown of a would-be tyrant; zingers against Trump rarely get more sophisticated than commenting on the size of his penis or calling him the orange bitch or orange troll.

There’s virtually no attempt to have the performers look, sound or act like the familiar characters they’re portraying (other than perhaps Ivana’s titanic blonde wig), nor are Florence D’Lee’s costumes in any apparent creative conversation with Gabriella Slade’s far more inventive costumes for “Six.”  What the six performers in “Five” most resemble are the game cast in a satirical revue. And indeed theatergoers are more likely to appreciate the show for its knowing musical allusions.  Marla (Gabriella Joy Rodriguez)   disses all the other women in the song “Unpopular,” (recalling “Popular” from Wicked.) Melania (Jaime Lyn Beatty) sings of her lonely childhood, when she befriended a potato, “Everything was more beautiful with potato” (echoing “Everything was beautiful at the ballet,” from A Chorus Line) The company sings “The Don Dump Tango,” whose lyrics include “just like the one they have in that Bob Fosse play” (i.e. “Cell Block Tango” from “Chicago.”)

This reaches its climax with the cameo appearance of Hillary Clinton, who looks nothing like Hillary Clinton, despite the white pantsuit, but, as portrayed by drag performer and opera singer Jasmine Rice LaBeija, makes a vivid impression in a number (“Don’t You Miss Me Now”) that suggests — lyrically or musically or both — one showstopper after another, from “Gypsy,” “Cabaret,” “Evita,” “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Frozen.”

The song makes reference to Clinton being a Broadway producer now. This is true; she’s one of the producers of “Suffs,” a musical scheduled to open in April about the suffragists who fought for women’s right to vote. The real Hillary is unlikely ever to say what Five’s Hillary says: “Politics is just show business with worse hair.” It’s the only time in the entire show that anybody utters the word “politics.”

Five the Parody Musical
Theater 555 through March 10
Running time: 80 minutes no intermission
Tickets: $49-$89.  Rush tickets: $39 on Todays Tix
Book and lyrics by Shimmy Braun and Moshiel Newman Daphna, music and lyrics by Billy Recce
Direction and choreography by Jen Wineman
Orchestrations and Arrangements by Terence “T” Odonkor, Music Supervision and Arrangements by Lena Gabrielle. Casting by Michael Cassara Casting. Scenic Design by David Goldstein; Costume Design  by Florence D’Lee; Lighting Design  by Marie Yokoyama; Sound Design by UptownWorks; and Props Design by Brendan McCann.
Cast: Anyae Anasia as Ivana, Gabriella Joy Rodriguez  as Marla, Jaime Lyn Beatty as Melania, Gabi Garcia as Stormy, and Hannah Bonnett as Ivanka, with Jasmine Rice LaBeija as Hillary Clinton.