Martin Kettle in New York
When a songwriter is as good and as famous as Paul Simon then, from one way of looking at it, he has nothing left to prove for the rest of his life. But when, like Simon, you cut your first record at 16, are a superstar at 26, and have been sustained on acclaim ever since, then it is not surprising that, when you reach 56, the lure of doing something new is difficult to resist. And when that something is a Broadway musical about Puerto Ricans of the West Side Story era, then it is hardly surprising the world takes notice.
All of which is enough to ensure that this month’s premiére of Simon’s The Capeman – directed by dance legend Mark Morris and with lyrics co-written by Nobel laureate Derek Walcott – is one of the music business’s most long-awaited events. There is, however, another reason for the long wait: the postponements.
The Capeman was to have opened officially on January 8, at the Marquis Theatre in New York. But in mid-December, the show’s producer, Dan Klores, announced a three- week delay for unspecified reorganisation. Assuming that The Capeman finally opens on January 29, the show will have been running in “preview” for nearly two months.
There are those who believe the postponement was nothing more than a wheeze to boost interest still further, but, having seen one of the previews, it is clear that there are real problems with the show and that the most ambitious venture in Simon’s career is hanging in the balance, as he works 18 hours a day (they say) to fix it.
As Schubert and Brahms found, the translation from great songwriter to great composer for the theatre is not easy. The Capeman tells the story of Salvador Agron, who, as a 16-year-old Puerto Rican immigrant, stabbed two teenagers to death in a gang fight in 1959. The New York media paraded Agron as the embodiment of heartless evil, nicknaming him “the Capeman” because of a long black cape he wore on the night of the crime. Agron served 20 years in prison, where he became a poet.
A group called Parents of Murdered Children has taken offence and began a picket. “Murder is not entertainment,” said the protesters, though without mounting a similar campaign against Don Giovanni.