Broadway Shows With Local Ties

Bryan Bantry, a youthful, high-powered fashion agent who is not much known outside the industry and his Georgica Pond neighborhood, put up $2 million to bankroll the Broadway music-and-dance revue "Street Corner Symphony."

The reviews were dismal. Even the enthusiasm of the audience failed to help improve ticket sales, said Mr. Bantry's publicist, Jackie Bescher. On Sunday afternoon, just two months after it opened, the eight cast members of "Street Corner Symphony" gave their last performance.

Mr. Bantry, agent for supermodels and high-priced photographers, and his estranged co-producer, Kenneth Waissman, could certainly empathize about the capriciousness of show business with Paul Simon. The Montauk resident is still refining his own Broadway production, "The Capeman."

Short-Lived Venture

"If I could tell you what went wrong, I'd be a real soothsayer," said Mr. Waissman. "There are times when a certain kind of show, the way it's presented or whatever, regardless of the audience response, is just not what the critics are in the mood for."

The audiences and several critics have been more in the mood for the third Broadway musical with ties to the South Fork - "Ragtime," which is reviewed below.

Mr. Bantry left Monday on an extended vacation. This was not his first short-lived Broadway venture, but friends said he was exhausted and disappointed nonetheless.

"Assinamali"

In 1982, he produced "Greater Tuna," which returned last year as "More Greater Tuna," and, in 1983, "You Can't Take It With You," starring Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst. Two years ago he produced "Aren't We All," with Claudette Colbert and Rex Harrison.

Mr. Waissman, whose credits include the original production of "Grease" as well as "Agnes of God" and "Torch Song Trilogy," also produced "Assinamali" with Paul Simon a few years ago.

The South African musical was a critical success and ran for several months, but was not commercially successful, he said.

Shoop-Shoop

"Street Corner Symphony" (and "Capeman" as well) had just the opposite problem. The audiences were appreciative, said Ms. Bescher, but the critics "went out of their way to be nasty."

"This show was meant for a relatively young audience and, unfortunately, the average age of the Broadway audience is older," she said.

The show set the pop, soul, and rhythm-and-blues music of the '60s and '70s on the street corners (hence the name) where shoop-shooping teenagers practiced harmonizing, and in the clubs where they danced the mashed potato and the frug.

"Capeman" Picketed

The New York Times acknowledged the lasting popularity of Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder - grudgingly predicting the music would "trigger the desired Pavlovian reflex in some baby boomers" - but called the dramatic presentation as "banal" as a "Vegas lounge act."

Similarly, last week's Times review of "Capeman" shrugged off Mr. Simon's music but used strong words, such as "masochistic," to describe the overall effect.

"Capeman," which opened Jan. 29, was painstakingly reworked after a disastrous preview run. It is now forging ahead, though there are picketers each night in front of the Marquis Theater protesting its "exploitation" of a notorious 1957 crime.

Some, though, say ticket sales may benefit from the publicity, as well as from the star appeal of Ruben Blades and Marc Anthony, who take turns in the lead role.

Mr. Simon's show follows the 30-year transformation of the teenaged murderer from hoodlum to jailhouse poet. It has repeatedly made the 11 o'clock news as relatives of the victims march on the picket lines.

Though songs from the show are now getting some radio airtime, by many reports the score, a mix of rock, gospel, doo-wop, and salsa, is unremarkable.

Not Building

"Street Corner Symphony" had a relatively modest $3.5 million budget for development. The investors, led by Mr. Bantry, will try to recoup their losses next time, Mr. Waissman said philosophically.

Meanwhile, there has been some interest in taking the show on a road tour, possibly to Europe.

"Many shows open to mixed or negative reviews, and sometimes they're able to pull out of that and other times the audience doesn't build at all," Mr. Waissman said. "In our case, the audience wasn't building fast enough to put the show in the black each week."

Critics Booed

He and Ms. Bescher both noted that "The Scarlet Pimpernel" was booed by the critics but is in its third month, dragged along by investors with deep pockets and perhaps too by "Les Mis"-inspired enthusiasm for its French Revolution setting.

The original production of "The Sound of Music" was panned by the critics, too. The rest, as they say, is history.