THE INFANTRY, play by Andy  and Dave Lewis. Staged by Andy Lewis; setting and lighting by Clarke Dunham; production stage manager, Richard Hamilton. Presented by Arthur Joel Katz for Red MArk Productions, Inc. At the 81st Street Theater, broadway and 81st Street.

Kansas...................................Rick Lenz
Wiley..................................James Rado
Prisoner.................................Bo Brudin
Mother.............................Paul Benedict
Arnstein..........................George Linieris
Baen.....................................Jess Osuna
Loretto.............................Martin Shakar
Diefer..............................Douglas Travis
St. John.............................Randy Pierce
Zowkas....................Morris Mark Alpern
Girl..................................Blythe Danner
 
 

In the first act of "The Infantry", which opened off broadway last night at the 81st Street Theater, the tough, gritty sergeant, who is called Mother, tells his griping, battle-weary men: "Somebody has got to be in the infantry."

The sergeant does not go on to quote General Sherman's famous remark about the nature of war, and that may be the undoing of the play.  "The Infantry", a conventional war-is-hell drama, simply lacks the courage of its own clichés.  Andy and Dave Lewis, the sibling authors of the piece, have cast their play in the form of melodrama and then, as if ashamed of the genre, they have refused to give it any particular dramatic line.

What's worse, not one of their four ears seems especially attuned to the style or rhythm of theater dialogue.  Despite the frequent use of four-letter words, the speeches (and the few, familiar ideas) come out in short, homely takes, as if they'd been written for a television or movie script.

The basic plot, which may have been on the "Late Late Show" 15 years ago, or even last night, concerns a small group of dogfaces sloshing their way into Germany near the end of World War II.  For a few hours they hole up in a farmhouse that looks as if it might have belonged to Hansel and Gretel, fallen on evil times.

They argue and fight - with each other and over a terrified German P.O.W. and a pretty fraulein, who returns to the house to retrieve a clock cherished by her father.

But the girl, and the tape-recorded shellings we hear from the wings, seem principally to be devices by which the authors escape the consequences of their own plotting.  The girl enters suddenly and an argument between two soldiers stops. (Where would it have gone of she hadn't entered?)  A particularly fierce shelling interrupts what has promised to be the gang rape of the girl.

The co-author, Andy Lewis, can have no beefs about this production.  He staged it himself.  It has all the snap and crackle of wet corn flakes.  Were all the pauses between speeches laid end-to-end, we'd probably have had time for a screening of "Battleground".

The performers are more or less limited by the material.  However Paul Benedict, who looks like he's been created by Bill Mauldin, has some good moments as the sergeant, as do James Rado, Jess Osuna, Randy Pierce and George Linjeris, as assorted G.I.'s.

But as the sergeant (who at one point is called upon to say :"We're all in this together.") might say: Comparatively speaking, they're good moments.
 

Copyright The New York Times Company.  All rights reserved.