The Capeman

1998 American musical

The Capeman is a musical play with music by Paul Simon and book and lyrics by Simon and Derek Walcott based on the life of convicted murderer Salvador Agrón. The play opened at the Marquis Theatre in 1998 to poor reviews and ran for 68 performances. A blend of doo wop, gospel, and Latin music, it received Tony Award nominations for Best Original Score, Best Orchestrations and Best Scenic Design. Renoly Santiago received a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Featured Performer in a Musical. Ednita Nazario won the Theater World Award for her performance. In 2008, Simon and the Spanish Harlem Orchestra performed The Capeman at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with some of the original cast and other well known artists. Simon also devoted a section of his two night performances at the Beacon Theatre to The Capeman. The NY Public Theater presented a concert production of the musical in the Summer of 2010 at Central Park's Delacorte Theater, directed by Diane Paulus.

Paul Simon began working on The Capeman in 1988. The early development was aided by Simon's friend Carlos Ortiz, who helped Simon locate and translate source material. Simon and Ortiz met with people who had known Agron in prison, and visited Esmeralda Agron in Puerto Rico. In the first minutes of their meeting, Agron described a dream of her son entering heaven, which would become the song "Esmeralda's Dream." Ortiz also introduced Simon to several Latin musicians, and before long Simon had written "Born in Puerto Rico," one of the show's centerpiece songs. Theatre producer Rocco Landesman responded to Simon's statements: "The idea that you can at a strike rewrite an art form is a little presumptuous. I can't say the people in the theater community were rooting for Paul Simon after all the things he said about Broadway." Some of the high budget was due to Simon's insistence that his musicians participate in all rehearsals with the actors, not a typical practice in Broadway productions. The show opened at the Marquis Theatre on January 29, 1998, and suffered from very poor reviews from the mainstream press. The show closed after only 68 performances on March 28.

Initial mainstream press reviews of The Capeman were overwhelmingly negative, though most had some praise for Simon's music. Time Magazine referred to Capeman as "one of the biggest flops in Broadway history." Ben Brantley, reviewer for the New York Times, wrote a very negative review, calling the show a "sad, benumbed spectacle" which was "unparalleled in its wholesale squandering of illustrious talents".

In 1997 (before the show's premiere), Simon released a studio album called Songs from The Capeman, featuring 13 songs from the show performed by Simon with appearances from some of the original cast. Compared to Simon's other studio recordings, the album was not a success, peaking at position 42 of the Billboard 200 chart, the lowest of his career. Soon after, Puerto Rican singer Danny Rivera included a Spanish language version of "Born in Puerto Rico" as part of his live recording, En Vivo desde Carnegie Hall. In the recording, Rivera can be heard acknowledging Simon's presence in the audience, and thanking him for the song on behalf of all Puerto Ricans. An original cast soundtrack recording was produced featuring 21 tracks, but its release was postponed after the show's failure. The record was eventually released in 2006 at the iTunes Store as The Capeman (Original Broadway Cast Recording). All vocals on this release were performed by the original cast, with an appearance by Paul Simon on "Trailways Bus."

The Capeman was not performed in its original form after its 68 show original Broadway run. Shortly after the show's closure there were discussions of a Songs of The Capeman national concert tour, but these plans were abandoned. Just days after the show's Broadway premiere, Variety journalist Greg Evans suggested that the doomed show would work well as a concert of songs. He wrote,
"Years from now, when some savvy producer is scouting old theater material for a scaled down concert staging, The Capeman should be first on his list." In 2008, Joseph Melillo, director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, produced a stage show called Songs from the Capeman using Paul Simon's Capeman music without the narrative dramatic elements of the show. Melillo said, "I wanted to help Paul, to get this demon out of him and onto the stage, where we could say, 'Look everyone, this is great music.'" Melillo's production featured the Spanish Harlem Orchestra led by Oscar Hernández, original music director for the Broadway Capeman. Paul Simon appeared, to sing "Trailways Bus," one of the songs from the show, and finished the evening with a performance of his 1980 Latin themed single "Late in the Evening." and a musical number by Danny Rivera. This version was substantially stripped down, with a running time of only about 90 minutes (compared to the original production's three hours). The new version increased the focus on Agron's mother, used more choreography, and had no sets. The media was instructed not to write reviews of the show, which was officially described as a work in progress, with Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis calling it "just a sketch" of full reconception of the show. Even so, Ben Brantley of the New York Times, who said the original Broadway production was "like watching a mortally wounded animal", gave a positive review, focusing on the organic staging outdoors on a rainy night in Central Park.