Revue in America

Revue in America. Some 18th‐ and early 19th‐century patriotic spectacles may be seen to foreshadow the opulence of later revue tableaux, while the skits and songs of minstrelsy and the mixed vaudeville bills of the later 19th century, as well as such one‐man shows of skits as those produced by Charles Mathews, all pointed unwittingly toward the future genre. Perhaps the most interesting precursor was John Brougham's Dramatic Review for 1868, a loosely tied together assemblage of songs and sketches. Like the earliest “reviews” a quarter of a century later, it used an English spelling for the term, the French spelling not coming into vogue until the second decade of the 20th century. Indeed, although revues were an important feature of Parisian theatre for much of the late 19th century, French influence seems to have been small. The show that unquestionably began the American fashion for revues was The Passing Show, which opened at the Casino Theatre in 1894 with a book and lyrics by Sydney Rosenfeld, and music by Ludwig Englander. That Rosenfeld was credited with a “book” instead of with sketches is significant, since virtually all early revues sewed together their songs and skits by means of some elementary plot. Not until shortly before World War I did revues abandon the idea of employing a story line. For several seasons the Casino produced a revue each summer, and for many seasons revues were considered primarily summer fill‐ins. But other theatres also housed occasional revues. The vogue for revues began to grow in earnest with Florenz Ziegfeld's Follies of 1907 (he did not add his own name to the series until the 1911 edition). His revues soon came to feature not only better, more important stars than had heretofore been seen in these shows, but offered better, more enduring music, a new standard of extravagant yet tasteful opulence, and a line of chorus beauties that became requisite. Within a few seasons his own editions had to compete with such other annuals as the Shubert Passing Shows (which had no connection with the 1894 revue), George White's Scandals, the Music Box Revues, the Earl Carroll Vanities, and others. George M. Cohan was among the important figures who produced occasional revues, and he is often credited with dropping plots from these shows. The heyday of the extravagant revue lasted from just before World War I until shortly after the war. By the mid‐1920s these lavish shows began to be considered too heavy and dated. A vogue for lighter, more literate revues took their place. Although American offerings such as The 49ers (1922) helped kindle the new fashion, many see the arrival of Charlot's Revue (1924) as signaling the crucial turning point. American revues of the very late 1920s and the 1930s in this newer style included The Little Shows, Three's a Crowd (1930), The Band Wagon (1931), As Thousands Cheer (1933), Life Begins at 8:40 (1934), and At Home Abroad (1935). Other notable revues of the 1930s included the union‐mounted Pins and Needles (1937) and Olsen and Johnson's Hellzapoppin (1938). In the 1940s the revue began to fade away, although the decade produced such memorable examples as Irving Berlin's This Is the Army (1942), using enlisted men; Call Me Mister (1946), which included mostly war veterans; and the last great revue, the uproariously funny if unmelodic Lend an Ear (1948).

Thereafter some possible internal exhaustion, coupled with the rise of television and the popularity of the more purposeful, integrated musical play, swept revues from American stages. In the last decades of the century a peculiar form of revue flourished briefly. These shows had no skits, but instead made an entire evening out of the music of an old or dead composer. Ironically, none of these shows used the music of the giants of the revue field or even of the American musical theatre. Rather they relied on important composers whose connections with Broadway had generally been brief and unsuccessful. The major successes of this form of revue have been Ain't Misbehavin' (1978), Eubie (1978), and Sophisticated Ladies (1981), which featured the music of Fats Waller, Eubie Blake, and Duke Ellington, respectively, and Black and Blue (1989), a potpourri of jazz‐age material. The longest running of these nostalgic revues was Smokey Joe's Cafe (1995) featuring the songs of Lieber and Stoller who never wrote for Broadway. At its height the revue of the past gave important starts to many composers and songwriters, such as George Gershwin; De Sylva, Brown, and Henderson; and Harold Rome. Virtually all of Arthur Schwartz's great songs have come from revues, while for many years Irving Berlin wrote for little else on Broadway. The form allowed many performers not adept at handling the dialogue or characterization required by book shows to shine. Perhaps the most noteworthy example was Ed Wynn, whose revues were among the most popular of the 1920s, but who generally failed when caught in book musicals. Many historians look on Al Jolson's so‐called book shows as glorified revues and insist that he, too, shone best as a solo performer. Fanny Brice gave her best performances in revues. Other notable stars who moved with more ease from one form to the other included Bert Williams, Eddie Cantor, Beatrice Lillie, and Bert Lahr.