The Journey of The Fifth Horse at Tufts Arena Theatre, thru Saturday

THE METAPHOR which playwright Ronald Ribman has made the title of his play is not an original one. Long before him, Turgenev had likened the lives of some men to the futile effort, the useless suffering, of a fifth horse hastily harnesses to a coach and four. All its striving, the tether lacerating its back as it strains forward, is pointless.

Nor is the tone of Ribman's play original. The combination of resignation and amused tolerance which characterizes landowner Nikolai Alexeevich Chulkaturin is reminiscent--deliberately so--of Camus' heroes. But there is a new dimension to Chulkaturin. He is awkward, comicly so at times. He possesses that amazing ability to stop a conversation dead merely by his appearance.

This is the only quality he shares with Zoditch, the first reader of the Grubov Publishing Company. Zoditch--much against his own inclination--is assigned to read the diary that Chulkturin kept just before his death. As Zoditch reads, the play weaves in and out of his own flights of fancy as well as those of the book he is reading. All are acted out in front of him, with occasional interruptions--as when a fellow tenant manages to get chewed up by the landlady's wolf hounds.

So, as Zoditch reads, he tries in vain to keep from realizing that he, too, is taking the journey of the fifth horse. He constantly criticizes Chulkaturin's characters, his words, his sentimentality, his quiet compassion, and, of course, he criticizes Chulkaturin's love for Lisa. But there is no escaping the obvious, and he is drawn deeper into Chulkaturin's tale; he even begins to substitute the names of figures in his own life for those of Chulkaturin's characters. And as he is drawn deeper, as his critique becomes more impassioned and more futile, it becomes obvious that Zoditch lacks everyone of Chulkaturin's admirable qualities. He dismisses Chulkaturin's compassion as maudlin because nothing can arouse his sympathy, for Zoditch, Chulkaturin's love is overly sentimental because Zoditch is not even capable of the mildest sort of affection. That is precisely why he cannot accept the ending of Chulkaturin's manuscript, why he must scream "I am loved; there is no other ending!" He has not even the smallest bit of the self-respect that allows a man to endure so cruel a fate.

This is the piece of human garbage that Peter Lempert is given to play, and, with the exception of a number of scenes where he is just a bit too hysterical, he plays them well. Despite the fact that Dustin Hoffman popularized the role, Lempert's Zoditch is so real, with his thin face, his pointed nose, his beady little eyes, and a body and limbs that curl and twist like those of a man old before his time, that it is virtually impossible to imagine anyone else in the part. What Lempert does best is comedy, and, though Zoditch is pathetic, Lempert makes him comic as well, capable of a certain sharp humor. These are exactly the qualities Zoditch needs in order to escape from becoming a parody.

Hollis Huston, who plays Chulkaturin is a very fortunate man; this stumbling, bumbling butt of every joke, because he is so very human, so unlike the other-worldly Marsault of The Stranger, is one of the most convincing of the characters Ribman has created.

But only part of Chulkaturin's appeal is to be found in the script. For the rest Huston is responsible. He makes Chulkaturin awkward without making him an embarrassing buffon, the greatest danger in such a characterization. For if Chulkaturin were a clown, his words, his perception, his ability to endure the "slings and arrows" could not possibly be convincing. When Huston smiles, it is the quiet smile, the wise and tolerant smile, that can appear only on the lips of the man who has known a bitter fate and has, ultimately, perceived the irony of it. He knows, quite well, that there is indeed another ending. JERALD R. GERST