The Great American Revue: - New York Public Library

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Three political-cultural topics were so entrenched in the period that they
were featured in every contemporary revue series.
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The popularity of the Russian ballet made specific ballets and
dancers show up in most of the revue series from 1910 – 1926, with
frequent parodies of Scheherazade and pun-filled characters based
on Pavlova, Mordkin and Nijinsky.
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In the World War I era, revues began to address their public’s
concerns with benefit events for refugees before America entered
the War and continues through Elsie Janis’ work with veterans
and the Bonus Army in the 1920s. In the seasons between, revues
presented patriotic pageantry and comedy about taxes and rationing,
and listed performer and writers’ military ranks in their programs.
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Prohibition was feared as a threat to New York’s entertainment/
tourism industries and detested by Broadway script and song
writers. From Raymond Hitchcock’s Hitchy-Koo monologue a few
weeks before enactment to the annual variations of “Three Mile”
jokes, they played to their audience’s knowledge of ways around the
Amendment’s provisions.
Revues provided visibility to generations of performers, designers,
directors, choreographers, writers, and songwriters who went on to redefine
Broadway, films, television, and popular entertainments. The
form has never disappeared. Hollywood adopted the form to usher in
the sound era, with each surviving studio presenting its own all-singing
revue. Many of the Broadway series continued or resumed into the 1940s.
Revues led by comics such as Bert Lahr proved popular into the 1950s on
Broadway. Since the 1960s, Off-Broadway and night club revues flourish
in the pattern of the Grand Street Follies and Garrick Gaities, celebrating
song writing and social satire.