USyd is famed for its colourful revue season. The tradition of some revues, such as Law or Science Revue endures, but as with anything on campus, time works change. Many Revues have jumped into the spotlight and since faded into obscurity: Hack Revue, Jew Revue, International Revue and Education Revue are few among a star-studded cast of extinct spectacles (for now).
The impact of COVID-19 on campus life and student theatre may be a tired discussion, but it is undeniable. The absences of so many identity and faculty revues are loud, and speak to dwindling participation due to the ‘COVID gap’, where the time lapse during lockdown meant experienced students graduated and could not foster novice involvement.
The first Revue held at USyd was known as “USYD Revue”, but quickly branched off into faculties, and later, identity revues. In 2013, USyd Revue became a “Best Of” assortment of sketches from the year before: initially, it played as part of the Sydney Comedy Festival.
I spoke to 2019 USyd Revue Director Kate Walder, who was contracted by USyd as a professional director to work alongside student producers and cast members. She was tasked with combing through the material of all 2018 Revues, and pulling together the best and brightest sketches.
That accounted for 50% of this ambitious “Best of” project. The other half of the show was devised exclusively by the USyd Revue cast of that year. Walder selected the cast from a pool of not only USyd students, but students from other universities. “I was very conscious of having representation from each revue”, she said.
The USyd Revue rehearsal process was longer and more intensive than the average identity or faculty revue. In Walder’s year, they had three rehearsals a week over a period of four months, wherein there was “constant generation of content”. Their creative process was “very collaborative”: Walder reached out to the 2018 Revue directors to establish what they thought was their best material, and was separately granted access to all the Revue scripts.
Unlike a standard revue, which is a hotchpotch of comic sketches long and short, Walder’s 2019 USyd Revue had a narrative structure, stemming from her background in theatre. “I created an opening number, where one character was threaded through all the revue sketches”, she explained. “Initially, people struggled in trusting this new direction”, she said, “but the reception of the show was great.”
Walder recalled that the USyd Revue in 2018 had a more comical bent due to the comedy background of the hired professional director. 2017-2019 were the only years where USyd Revue fused the professional and the student theatre world by employing a professional, external director. Revues past were entirely student-run as they are today. According to Walder, the semi-professional environment sometimes wrought chaos and misunderstandings, as professionals and students approach theatre and its commitments quite differently. Ultimately, she spoke positively of the experience and remarked how its semi-professional environment offered cast members a different experience to the typical revue.
2020’s USyd Revue director was meant to be Diana Reid, but the show was cancelled in the wake of COVID. Since campus has been re-flooded with students, there has been little news of a USyd Revue return. Although the decline of revue participation is attributable to COVID, our lukewarm feelings towards their endangerment and extinction is a far cry from USyd’s devout revue past. In 2015, all but one Engineering Revue cast member threw in the towel the day before opening night. Rather than let this rambunctious revue fall to the wayside, a ragtag bunch of USyd Revue members and other Revue directors stepped in, and fashioned a revue in 96 hours.
One whispering of a return for USyd revue comes in the form of an ad hoc group chat devised in late 2020, named University of Sydney (revue) Union. Ex-Revue directors, 2020 USyd Revue participants and Conservatorium of Music students planned to revive the revue without USU backing. However, thrown into another lockdown, this chat’s dreams never saw the light of day, and many of its members have since graduated.
Must we be the change we wish to see for a ‘Best Of’ Revue? Is it worth dusting off the cobwebs? Will it be a matter of the USU deciding, since they hold all the cards (and funding), or a dedicated team of actors reviving a lost relic? After all, the show must go on…
