| | Headline | ´CAPEMAN´ may fly again!!!!! |
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| Author | Comment | Pam
Nov-20-2009, 15:36 GMT
USA - United Staates America
 | FROM THE NEW YORK POST 11/20/09
The latest trend in New York theater: reviving the biggest flops of all time.
The other famous flop that´s coming back is Paul Simon´s ´The Capeman,´ which lost $11 million on Broadway in 1998 and earned Simon the nickname ´The Flopman.´
Sources say Oskar Eustis, the head of the Public Theater, is in talks with Simon about bringing the show back next year.
´Oskar loves ´The Capeman,´ ´ a Public Theater spokesperson says. ´He loves the music and the story. He has met with Paul Simon, but there are not concrete plans at this time.´
Well, they may not be ´concrete,´ but there are plans.
Eustis, sources say, wants to do a concert version of the show. The book -- by Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott -- will pretty much be eliminated, which is a good thing because it´s dreadful.
But Walcott´s lyrics -- and Simon´s tunes -- are haunting. ´Born in Puerto Rico,´ ´Satin Summer Nights´ and the gorgeous ´Time Is an Ocean´ are first-rate songs that got lost in the mess that wound up on Broadway.
´The Capeman´ was never recorded, but Simon made a studio album, ´Songs From The Capeman,´ the year before the show opened that´s well worth hunting down.
Simon performed songs from ´The Capeman´ at BAM last year, which is where Eustis got the idea of bringing back the show.
Simon, I´m told, just might perform in the Public Theater version as well.
´The Capeman´ tells the story of Salvador Agron, a gang member who murdered two teenagers in Hell´s Kitchen in 1959.
The original production starred Ruben Blades as Old Salvador and Marc Anthony as young Salvador.
If Eustis can get Anthony to play old Salvador in the Public´s concert version -- and if Simon´s in it, too -- you´re looking at a hot ticket.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/theater/flop
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| | | | Bodo
Nov-20-2009, 16:25 GMT
Austria
 | I do not understand what it is... a musical where you delete the story, that is a concert. And if you let Paul do the shows, then it is simply what he did last year. Am I wrong?
So why calling it a musical and playing it at theaters? Why not going on tour with it?
Whatever, I do not think that this will happen ;-) | | | | Bodo
Nov-20-2009, 16:26 GMT
Austria
| BTW Pam - News sound more serious without 3 exclamation points.
| | | | Paul A. Fournier
Nov-20-2009, 17:56 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| Pam, Thanks for letting us know this excellent news!! Hearing that Paul may participate is even better news. It´s always such a treat to hear these great songs performed live. | | | | nancy
Nov-20-2009, 23:33 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| I absolutely Love the music from the Capeman. I think it is one of the best things he has done. I would love a chance to see it in some form. | | | | Bodo
Nov-23-2009, 12:36 GMT
Austria
| Love the music too | | | | matthew
Nov-23-2009, 15:58 GMT
United Kingdom
 | Paul has hinted in interviews that he thinks it will be revived at some point. He has also said that two theatre companies in England have staged the musical, although I have never heard of this from any other source. | | | | SueR
Nov-23-2009, 19:33 GMT
United Kingdom
| Matthew, we saw a performance of The Capeman by the Manchester Youth Theatre in September 2000 - it was excellent, so well done. It was at the Contact Theatre. It was rumoured at the time (in local newspapers) that Paul Simon would be in the audience, but I never thought that would happen. I don´t recall any other theatre company putting this on. | | | | matthew
Nov-24-2009, 12:06 GMT
United Kingdom
| Ah yes, in the interview Paul Simon did mention the north of England so that is consistent.
| | | | mog
Nov-25-2009, 01:18 GMT
Unknown
 | Well, I realize this might be a minority point of view, but I do not think The Capeman should be revived.
Although I did not see the show, from all what I have been reading on it, a certain consensus emerges on the fact that it had several flaws. I guess these flaws should be corrected in order to have a good show (would Paul allow it?!), and I do not see that it would be worth for Paul to invest one more minute of his life on this project. He already invested more than 5 years of his career on it, and in retrospect, one can say that it had a fatal blow on his ´commercial´ career.
The page has been turned on The Capeman.
I recognize the effort, and the fact some good songs have been written in this project, but quite frankly, each time I listen to the cast album, I can´t wait for the CD´s to be over. And imagine: I am a fan.
And although I think SFTC stands in its own right as a worth piece of music in Paul´s spectrum, still I do not think that he successfully captured the beauty of doo-wop stuff for instance. | | | | Bodo
Nov-25-2009, 10:29 GMT
Austria
| Mog, you are not really alone - I too think Paul should go on and work on new projects. So I doubt he will stay on stage every evening and do that show (also because he did not do that in 1998, and also because he had written so many songs in the last few years that he should better complete a new album.)
But as I said: I really like the Capeman songs and Pauls album. It is so sad that today he never includes any of these songs on his solo tours - I am sure the band can bring that sound onto stage.
I sometimes have the feeling that there is a big missunderstanding between Paul, commercial success, and what his fans want. Therefore he rarely plays H&B songes, and never plays The Capeman songs. A fail in sales numbers should not hurt him so much I think/thought.
| | | | Ans
Nov-25-2009, 11:34 GMT
Netherlands
 | Hmm, I think The Capeman deserves a second chance. With the help of a good director it could become a beautiful musical or a story in concert form. The story is still relevant today and the songs are very good. I liked what I saw on the internet from Frankie Negron & The Vampires from their concerts at BAM and the Beacon.
| | | | Rhymin
Nov-26-2009, 22:37 GMT
United Kingdom
| May I say that having seen the original Capeman on Broadway back in ´98, and the Manchester youth theatre version in 2000, I remain convinced that it is an incredible achievement by Paul Simon, and something he is still very proud of. The show on Broadway was good; very good, and whilst I know nothing of Broadway and it´s apparant "requirements" for a show to be a hit, it was purely the NY press that killed the show. The music is incredible, the cast were amazing, the story fascnating, yet everyone assumes the press were right. What do they know? Paul stands alone in popular culture in his ability to craft a piece of work so true to his vision, and I find it incredible, and very frustrating that he even gets a bad press by own his fans on this forum, and elsewhere. Unless you saw the show in it´s original incarnation, then please don´t critise something you don´t understand. Be proud of what Paul did back then in 1998, and support whatever guise the Capeman takes if/when it returns next year. | | | | mog
Nov-27-2009, 03:27 GMT
Unknown
| Well, everyone is entitled to have his or her opinion on the issue. I respect yours, please respect mine. I do not have to be told what to think, as a fan.
Again, I repeat: I have not seen the show. I admire Paul as an artist for this entire project. It was very ambitious, and it was as he put it himself ´a very unusual mix of music styles and subject-matters´.
It is probably true that medias and Broadway apparachiks have overkilled it. But cannot believe that such a concert of negative reviews had not a bottom of truth.
As for the record, it is seriously underrated in Paul´s catalogue, but if it sold only 40 thousands or so in the US, it is probably because it lacked some appealing stuff. Let´s face it !
I am amazed at the complexity of some stuff on SFTC (ex: vocals on Adios Hermanos), but on the other hand, what he tries to imitate musically does not perspire the gorgeous sound of the real stuff (doo-wop, salsa, ´50 music) (he got close though).
Listen to Frankie Leymon, the Dell-Vikings, the Cadillacs, and get back to me !
´If you can say things simply, it has the power of reaching many, many people. If you can´t say it simply, it is still powerful, but for fewer people´ - Paul Simon | | | | nancy
Nov-27-2009, 09:29 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| We can disagree, but I truly Love the music from this play. It was probably a hard sell because it was quite unusual and required some listens to "get It". At first I was lukewarm about it. I put it away,and when I got it out again and really listened, I liked it better each time I played it. I still listen to it quite frequently and don´t get tired of it. I hear something new each time I listen. I like Paul´s CD, and I like the cast album - I listen to them for different reasons. I think it is an admirable piece of work. You don´t have to like it just because I like it, though. | | | | |
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