Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1979 (DRG) (3 / 5)  When anthropologists set out to decode the raw, unvarnished theater scene of late-1970s New York, their fieldwork should probably start with this recording. A Polaroid of an era when Gotham was renowned mainly for crime and smut — simpler times, really — this diverting revue, aided by an eye-catching poster, ran for two years at The Village Gate. The show’s writers, Northwestern alumni John Driver and Jeff Haddow, drew unabashedly on their own show-business bruises, starring with two classmates (and a live duck!) in a production some cite as an ancestor of Forbidden Broadway. While it lacks that show’s sharper bite, Scrambled Feet — titled for a sequence that was cut before the New York run — vigorously declares in its punchy opener (“Haven’t We Met?”) that it offers “comedy, insanity, and something more: a totally original musical score.” From there, it unfolds like a satirical valentine to the theater, its writers, audiences, critics, and particularly, struggling actors of the day — those who gave up their dignity to rise at 5:30 a.m. and freeze in audition lines, dropping off black-and-white headshots and checking their answering machines multiple times from pay phones, a lifestyle poignantly chronicled in “Makin’ the Rounds.” Likewise, “Could Have Been” tenderly sketches a chance reunion between two ex-actors sidelined by life years earlier. While much of the score is comedic, songs like these succeed by straddling pluck and regret, capturing both the romance and relentless uncertainty of life-on-the-boards. The authors are clearly gifted melodists, deploying pastiche to tuneful, comedic effect. But without the staging, the lyrics can wear thin, growing repetitive as entire choruses reappear verbatim. Although the now-creaky sketches, including a limp running gag about a composer who can’t write an original melody, are kept to a minimum, they still drag on repeat hearings. The album’s secret weapon, and reason enough to seek it out, is Evalyn Baron, the cast’s lone woman. Her singular voice — reedy, airy, wistful yet powerful, and deliciously mock-austere — recalls that of Anna Russell. Her dainty duet with Roger Neil, a 3/4-time tale of backstage romance gone awry called “Love in the Wings,” is a highlight. Baron’s expansive range is also featured to side-splitting effect when she channels Melba Moore’s histrionics in “Advice to Producers.” This tart time capsule, circa Broadway 1979, encourages the creatively bankrupt to steal with gusto: “Grab a two-step from Bob Fosse / Steal from Sondheim? Why not! / Stories you can get from Shakespeare / God knows where he got the plot.” Duck, yeah! — Mark Robinson