Album Review: Maltby & Shire's BABY Is 40 & This BABY Gets A New Cast Album To Celebrate

Heigh Ho, dear lovely rainbow tribe, welcome back to Bobby's CD sandbox where we offer our broken-down breakdowns of new music releases. So, strap in and get ready, as Bobby goes on the record ABOUT the record.

This week's album entry in the BobbyFiles comes from Out Of The Box Theatrics' 2021 revival of Maltby & Shire's 1983 motherhood musical BABY. Fans of this show and its wonderful OG cast recording are just that, fans (dedicated ones, at that), and they became so through a sequence of events that look almost identical, person to person, since very few people in the world saw the Tony Nominated but poorly attended OG production. You see, my dear readerlambs, it all started with the 1984 Tony Award broadcast, in which the 3 leading ladies from that show knocked their number, I WANT IT ALL, out of the park. Then followed trips to what we used to call a record store to pick up the cast album of this new musical we knew virtually nothing about, and, then, perhaps caught any one of a number of regional theatre productions that popped up in the succeeding 2 to 4 years. This is how it happened for Little Bobby - Tonys, album, regional theatre. We even house-managed the show's first-ever regional theatre production in the southwest, where we tore tickets and hollered at volunteer ushers to work faster or they would be fired volunteer ushers. In the '80s BABY was a musical that satisfied audiences on a lot of levels, but it might take some re-tooling for it to do so for its ruby jubilee - its anniversarium quadragesimum (what? Bobby knows Latin words too!). Enter Liz Flemming, who popped Out Of The Box with director Ethan Paulini to give the BABY a 21st-century spin, with Flemming spearheading the production and Paulini directing and both of them appearing in their new BABY.

Playing the over-40s couple whose grown kids are finally all out of the nest, but OOOPS they're pregnant again are Robert H. Fowler as Alan and the marvelous Julia Murney as Arlene. For the middle 30-something pair trying like mad to GET pregnant, there has been an update from Nick and Pam to Nicki and Pam, a same-sex couple walking the fertility hormone and insemination road, played by Christina Sajous as Pam and Gabrielle McClinton as Nicki. Assuming the roles of the young college students, Lizzie and Danny, who have a birth control whoopsie, we have OOTB founder/artistic director Flemming who, herself, has visual limitations, and Johnny Link, a hard-of-hearing actor, both of which attributes have been worked into the updated script, originally penned by Sybille Pearson. Previous fans of the show will note the Nick to Nicki change, as well as the lyric updates that the change necessitates, as well as updates in arrangements here and there, with more rock & roll sounds, overall, but nothing has been pushed so far out of proportion that it's an Alien BABY.

Overall, the score has been treated with respect on this new recording, and the voices, more Broadway modern-day, give very fine singing actor performances. The opening song, WE START TODAY is still the same bouncy introduction to the players and their pregnancy journeys and gets all of the exposition out of the way efficiently. We do have a note for the title song BABY in that the two ladies, Sajous & McClinton (wonderful singers mind you) sound a touch similar and it can be difficult, at times, to distinguish who is singing. One of the additions to this album is that of the chorus transition tracks. These are tiny moments in the show when the ensemble becomes a kind of singing Greek chorus, telling us about the passage of time, giving the listener a sense of how far along the ladies are.

It is important that the three mothers-to-be really set I WANT IT ALL ablaze and they do not disappoint. Though the song has lost a lot of its anthemic umph and is not the feminist-cum-mom war cry it was in '84, these three voices scale the mountain admirably. FATHERHOOD BLUES is the big novelty number of the show and this version rocks out more than the original, with a pretty killer vocal arrangement, but now the female voice of McClinton is added in with the fathers. Presumably, this is because she holds the "father" position between her and Sajous' Pam, who will carry their child, if they ever achieve a viable pregnancy. The new Lyrics for this future mom are a bit rough and seemed shoehorned in, taking away a bit of the fun, but once we circle back to OG words, the song ends big. Act I's finale, THE STORY GOES ON, probably rivals Act II's PATTERNS (we'll get to that) as the most famous from this show. Lizzie feels her baby move for the first time, and now it's all real. Fleming's lyrical soprano is lilting and sweet and she saves her big notes and biggest belt for the end... selling it all the way. The Orchestra, however, overbalances her final notes, making it difficult to hear her words. And as for PATTERNS, this ballad was a sad casualty in the original Broadway run, but the producers wisely included it on the cast album in '84, giving Beth Fowler her signature song, and singing actresses for decades a preferred number for auditions and cabarets. Today, in the hands and voice of Julia Murney, with her impeccable phrasing and her naturally dramatic vocals giving weight to the song, we have one of our best singing actresses making the musical monologue all her own. Her tears are palpable through the recording, as she truly sounds like a woman on the brink.

In all, this new BABY from Out Of The Box Theatricals is a fine 40th Birthday present for the old BABY. The cast features Christina Sajous as Pam, Gabrielle McClinton as Nicki, Julia Murney as Arlene, Robert H. Fowler as Alan, Liz Flemming as Lizzie, and Johnny Link as Danny. The ensemble includes Jorge Donoso, Marisa Kirby, Jewell Noel, and Ethan Paulini (who also directed the production). All the actors present the score with talent and sensitivity that plays through the speakers, and listeners who know nothing of this show can get a good handle on the story between the liner notes and the recording. Does it make us want to abandon the OG Cast Album? No... But it was a fine listen and, as a BABY fan, we can say there is a lot here to enjoy and so this new album gets...

3 3/4 Out Of 5 Rainbows - Put this one in your collection/stream today.

You Can Put This One In Your Spotifies: HERE