PLAYBILL

August 1998

THE CAPEMAN (Dreamworks)

Recorded in March, the original Broadway cast album of Paul Simon's high-profile flop The Capeman has had its release date postponed several times; it is now scheduled to appear in October. A double-CD package (minus booklet and cover, but with full track sequencing) was sent to Tony voters last spring; while it is possible the recording has undergone further mixing since, this version sounds finished and fully releasable, so I thought it would be of interest to preview it at this stage.

The set runs 124 minutes, and preserves several sections ("Carmen," "Christmas in the Mountains") cut during previews. Another number cut in previews, "Trailways Bus," is also heard, but with Simon himself (rather than cast members) singing the male roles.

The score remains one-of-a-kind. The Capeman was neither rock musical, pop opera, nor traditional musical theatre piece, but it is filled with haunting music, strange, tantalizingly lovely sequences, and several outstanding songs ("Born in Puerto Rico," "Can I Forgive Him?," "Adios Hermanos," "Time Is An Ocean," "Sunday Afternoon"). As in the theatre, the major drawback is the second half, which gets badly bogged down when it turns to musicalizing a prison guard, a warden, and Wahzinak, Salvador Agron's epistolary lover.

The recording serves to remind one that The Capeman was done a disservice by being mounted directly on Broadway. More an oratorio or song cycle inspired by the life and culture of Agron than a musical, it did not offer conventional character development or dramatic structure -- the order of numbers could at times be shuffled with no loss to the action. Offering it initially as a stage musical inevitably led to a feeling of bewilderment on the part of an audience expecting to see something that operated like a dramatic theatre piece.

I maintain the best route would have been to introduce The Capeman through a series of concerts featuring the three Latino stars -- Ruben Blades, Marc Anthony, Ednita Nazario -- the show would eventually feature, along with Simon as narrator and occasional performer, a large orchestra, and projections and/or films suggesting the scenes and events. I suspect the score would have been well-received in such circumstances, and a live album of one of these concerts might have brought the piece widespread attention and acceptance. After that, Simon and co-author Derek Walcott might have worked with a director to shape what they had written into a workable theatre piece. Even if The Capeman would never have fully worked as a stage musical, a Broadway production might have gotten by had the score been allowed to develop a following first.

And even without Bob Crowley's wonderful set designs, The Capeman may find more favor on disc than it did on Broadway, as its song-cycle nature is less of a problem on a recording. And those lead singers are very strong, with Antony and Blades perfect as the young and mature Sals, Nazario making gorgeous sounds as their mother, and Renoly Santiago making scary ones as The Umbrella Man. Stanley Silverman's orchestrations make a major contribution.

Flawed as it is, I find The Capeman -- a show vilified by almost every critic -- impossible to dismiss on disc. Because it was mostly performed by Simon, last fall's Warner Bros. single-CD Songs From The Capeman will remain of interest, but the Dreamworks cast album should pretty much supplant it. Will the new recording lead to future productions? Perhaps not, but it could very well turn The Capeman into one of those cult flops far more admired on disc than it ever was on stage.