the.com/revue
A play that gave up on plot and just started singing.
means A theatrical show made of loosely linked songs, sketches, and dance numbers, usually built around a theme rather than a story.
from Borrowed straight from French 'revue,' meaning 'a review' or 'survey' — the sense being a show that surveys or reviews current events, fashions, and follies of the day in rapid-fire sketches. It comes from the verb 'revoir,' 'to see again,' a cousin of English 'review.' The genre took off in Paris theaters before crossing to London and New York, where it kept its French name as a badge of sophistication.
- structure
- sketches and songs, no plot gluing them
- origin
- french for review, as in satirical review
- golden era
- 1920s broadway, before musicals grew spines
- legacy
- snl is basically a revue that never closed