Woman Of The Year - Original Broadway Cast

One of the lesser known Broadway shows from the iconic writing team of John Kander and Fred Ebb was the 1981 vehicle for the actress Lauren Bacall, "Woman of the Year." The show performed well, running 770 performances, and garnered four Tony Awards, including Best Original Score and Leading Actress in a Musical. Yet the musical tends to get lost in the Kander and Ebb canon behind their two blockbusters, "Cabaret" and "Chicago." Masterworks Broadway, however, has now released the cast album digitally, and we have a chance to enjoy a classic show album that is still enchanting, even with its flaws.

Bacall was never a voice to enjoy solely audibly, but her interpretations of "When You're Right, You're Right," and the title track, allow us to envision the presence that kept audiences coming during its run at the Palace Theater, before the role of the famous actress, Tess Harding, was taken over by the likes of Raquel Welch and Debbie Reynolds. Harry Guardino plays cartoonist Sam Craig, the on-again, off-again love interest of Harding, and his versions of "See You in the Funny Papers" and the now-standard, "Sometimes a Day Goes By," give us entertaining insight into the complicated relationship between the two characters.

Revivals of "Woman of the Year" are difficult due to the heavily dated material, with its Cold War references and gender cliches, but the show also gave us "The Grass is Always Greener," where Bacall and Marilyn Cooper (who also won a Tony for her performance) dispute the advantages of one another's lives.

The audio quality is mediocre, and a remastered recording would have added tremendous appeal to the songs, but with its lack of a modern topic, "Woman of the Year" will remain only as a collector's album, regardless of the strength of the writing from the men who gave us "All That Jazz," and "Wilkommen."

"Woman of the Year" (Original Broadway Cast Album)
$11.98
CD and digital formats
www.masterworksbroadway.com