The Education of H*y*m*a*n K*a*p*l*a*n

Nostalgia is recollection in tranquillity, and it tends to tell the past the way it wasn't. The friendly Cossacks of Fiddler on the Roof are light-years away from the cavalrymen who conducted the ruthless pogroms of turn-of-the-century Russia. Nor were the flocks of immigrants, herded through Ellis Island, the ebullient innocents who people The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N. Both shows lean heavily on their Jewish orientation, but where Fiddler is a folk musical of size and substance, Kaplan is a minimusical of sweetness.

The title character, Hyman Kaplan (Tom Bosley), is likable even though he is an outrageous showoff. To him and to the other immigrants attending a night-school class in Americanization, the English language is a terrifying octopus at which they slash, tentacle by tentacle, in a melee of dialect comedy and amusing linguistic boners. Kaplan is in a one-man class by himself. If the teacher, an earnest young Ivy League graduate named Mr. Parkhill (Gary Krawford) rebukes him, Kaplan rebukes right back. Kaplan answers twice as many questions as are ever asked, and holds the attention of his fellow class mates so volubly that Mr. Parkhill has trouble lecturing a word in edgewise.

When citizenship time comes, Kaplan practices for the judge's (Rufus Smith) questions. Asked to recite the Preamble to the Constitution, the marvelously assured Kaplan rattles off the Boy Scout oath. "That isn't in the Constitution," he is told. His face momentarily clouded in mock chagrin, Kaplan replies, "It isn't? Well, it should be." Saturated with Tom Bosley's warm humanity and lit with his winning smile, Kaplan seems to exemplify what F. Scott Fitzgerald once defined as the essence of America--"a willingness of the heart."

Kaplan's heart beats with the triple yearning of the immigrant--to be free, to learn and to succeed. This riptide of desire roars across the stage in a number called Anything Is Possible, a paean to the American dream in which Kaplan outlines his own humble wish to have a tailor's shop with his name over it. He gets it, and he also gets his night-school sweetheart, Rose Mitnick (Barbara Minkus).

Rose and Hyman make more lyrical music together than the score does. Still, such songs as Loving You and The Day I Met Your Father maintain the tone of tenderness that gives the evening its underlying harmony. The dances are robust rather than stylish; after working 14-hour days and attending night school, those old immigrants exhibit an improbable excess of energy. But that, of course, is the sweet errantry of nostalgia that gives this gentle musical its appeal.

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