Paul Simon's `Capeman' To Close On Broadway

NEW YORK - Paul Simon hoped his Broadway musical "The Capeman" would invigorate a medium he said had become stale.

But "The Capeman" struggled even before it opened, and now the musical is closing as one of the biggest flops ever on the Great White Way.

Producers announced yesterday that "The Capeman," which cost $11 million, will close March 28 after just 68 regular performances.

Simon tried to look on the bright side. "What I enjoyed the most apart from the creative process was the intensity with which the audience, in particular the Latino audience, responded to the play," Simon was quoted as saying by the play's spokesman, John Barlow.

Based on the true story of a 1959 Puerto Rican gang killing in New York that became a newspaper sensation, "The Capeman" ran through three directors - including Seattle native Mark Morris (who also was the show's choreographer)- and was severely panned by critics.

Simon wrote 38 new songs for the musical, and Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott, who wrote the book, helped write some of the lyrics. Ruben Blades, a celebrated and highly popular Latino singer, was one of the stars.

But while many shows open in another city or Off-Broadway to iron out the kinks, "The Capeman" went straight to Broadway, a move some believed put the production under too much scrutiny during rehearsals.

Songs were added and four-time Tony winner Jerry Zaks was called in to polish up the production, although he never officially replaced Morris as director. Despite the problems, ticket sales were high during previews.

When the show finally opened Jan. 29, however, it was not received well by critics.

The Seattle Times' Misha Berson wrote: " `Capeman' squanders not only Simon's gifts, but those of beloved salsa stars (Marc Anthony, Blades, Ednita Nazario), an ingenious designer (Bob Crowley), a Nobel laureate poet (co-lyricist Walcott) and (Morris) . . . From all these chefs comes a sadly pallid broth, enlivened sporadically by beguiling tunes . . . But with a muddled story, numbingly conveyed via banal sung dialogue and static tableaus, `Capeman' has all the dramatic tension of a sociology textbook."

Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press called the show "pallid and preachy" and an "anemic retelling" of the story of Salvador Agron, the 16-year-old cape-wearing gang member who stabbed two teenagers to death and became the youngest person on New York's death row.

Crime-victim-rights advocates also protested that Simon built a show around Agron.

"The Capeman" joins another Broadway bomb this season, "Sideshow," which lost about $7 million.

The Simon musical is expected to surpass "Big," which lost $10 million, as the biggest flop on Broadway. Another colossal bomb was "The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public," in which investors lost at least $9 million.