THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N A Musical in 2 Acts, 13 Scenes. Book by Benjamin Bernard Lavin. Based on the collected stories (of the same name) by Leo Rosten. Music and lyrics by Paul Nassau and Oscar Brand. Production directed by George Abbott. Settings by William and Jean Eckart. Costumes by Winn Morton. Lighting by Martin Aronstein. Musical direction and vocal arrangements by Julian Stein. Orchestrations by Larry Wilcox. Dance music arranged by Lee Holdridge. Dances and musical numbers staged by Jaime Rogers. Associate producer, David W. Sampliner. Produced by Andre Goulston/Jack Farren and Stephen Mellow. Alvin Theatre, New York - Opened 4th April, 1968 : closed 27th April, 1968 (28 perfs) SYNOPSIS Hyman Kaplan is an immigrant and a pupil at a New York night class in English. He is extremely diligent and enthusiastic, but completely incapable of learning: the teacher, Mr Parkhill, is eventually driven to conclude that, although Mr Kaplan admits that English has rules - "good rules, sensible rules" - he is quite unable to admit that the rules apply to him. Mr Kaplan is extroverted and highly assertive, particularly when his moral sense has been outraged by some perceived injustice in class or in American history, and he frequently gets into noisy disagreements with other members of the class. He usually signs his name in coloured crayon with stars between the letters. Mr Kaplan was born in Kiev, has lived in America for fifteen years, and claims (on Columbus Day) that his birthday is 12th October. From his pronunciation of English (the characters' various idioms are a major source of the stories' humour), it appears that Mr Kaplan's native language is Yiddish. Characters The teacher Mr Parkhill - a staid, kind-hearted, mild-mannered teacher with a tendency to think of his pupils in terms of classical literature. He is rigorously fair-minded, often to his own detriment when faced with Mr Kaplan's very individual brand of logic. He is also a lonely and rather tragic character: when the class present him with a new briefcase with the initials "M.P." on it as a birthday present, he is at first puzzled since his first name does not begin with M; then realizes that the letters stand for "Mr Parkhill" and that he cannot remember the last time anyone addressed him by his first name. Other members of the class • Mr Reuben Plonsky is better than Mr Kaplan at grasping the rules of English, but who somehow end up on the losing side of the arguments that erupt between them. • Mr Norman Bloom - likewise • Miss Rose Mitnick, a quiet, shy young woman whose grasp of English is almost perfect, but who generally withers before the force of Mr Kaplan's rhetorical passion. • Mrs Sadie Moskowitz, characterised by Mr Parkhill as "the Niobe of the beginners' grade", a large, lugubrious middle-aged lady who is baffled by the English language and spends much of the time asleep, waking only to punctuate a particularly intimidating fact with a despairing exclamation of "Oy!" • Miss Olga Tarnova, an emotional young Russian woman. • Mr Sam Pinsky, a loyal ally of Mr Kaplan. • Miss Carmen Caravello, an Italian woman prone to loud disagreement with Mr Kaplan.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODU3MzQ=