Now, the muscular and commanding actor takes a virtuoso turn, transforming himself into eight Medal of Honor winners in the one-man show he wrote.

Adapted from a book of interviews by Larry Smith, and directed with bravura touches by Robert Falls, the show that opened last week at the Roundabout Theatre Company's Laura Pels Theatre is a telling choice at this moment of our history. Focusing on heroes in three missions, World War II, Korea and Vietnam, this is theater that cuts two ways. The decorated heroes, who include Rear Adm. James Bond Stockton and 2nd Lt. Daniel K. Inouye, behaved with valor but also with brutality. Although ostensibly a tribute to the glory of battle, Lang's play, and his performance, are charged with moral ambiguity.

Most of the men overflow with machismo. But they are not braggart warriors of classical comedy, and many, in fact, are quite modest about the actions that won them the medal. The citations are read by offstage voices, while the heroes downplay their super-fighter acts.

"Beyond Glory" unfolds on a stage backed by three screens, in an upstage arc, in the simple setting by Tony Cisek. An oversized footlocker holds all the costumes Lang will wear as he shifts roles. Theatrical lighting by Dan Covey combines with projections by John Boesche to divide and illustrate the various segments. Stirring military music by Robert Kessler and Ethan Neuberg and the sounds of firepower and bombs dramatize each scene.

The heroes include five working-class white men, two black men and a Japanese-American, the future U.S. senator from Hawaii, Inouye.

Lang opens the 80-minute play as Navy Lt. John William Finn recalling the interruption of his plans to enjoy "some love with my beautiful wife" on a Sunday morning at the Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station on Dec. 7, 1941. A jocular man's man, Finn tells of joining up as a kid in 1926, and of his meeting with his adored Alice after his return from China in 1932.

Finn then jumps forward to the day when he "secured and manned a .50-caliber machine gun in a completely exposed area, which was under heavy enemy machine-gun strafing fire," according to the voice of the military. Then Finn takes up the story. Seeing that the air attack had reduced "every plane on the field to a rubble of smoke and melted aluminum," he fired at the Japanese Zeros for "the next two hours and a half...." He says he was "madder than hell — I wasn't being courageous," then tells of his decoration and retirement. "That's my story," he ends. "Good one, ain't it?"

Lang then transitions to Clarence Sasser, putting on glasses and a sweater, and drinking from a thermos of coffee, for a re-enactment of a fight on Jan. 10, 1968, when the Army specialist found himself and his men flanked on three sides and under mortar attack. He says: "I did what I did because it was my job, and if I didn't do it, none of us were going to get out."

Next, Lang dons an Ike jacket and a beret to become Army Capt. Lewis L. Millet, whose day of glory came Feb. 7, 1951, in Korea. This segment is the most brutal, and reflects on America's long military heritage, and the bayonets Millet's grandfathers employed in the Civil War. Leading the charge, he says, "I got three of 'em, the first two in the throat. The third, I lunged, and the bayonet went into his forehead like a watermelon."

Vice Adm. James B. Stockdale, Ross Perot's running mate in 1992, tells his story of being a prisoner of war at the Hanoi Hilton. Wearing a wind-breaker and using a folding stool, he gives a low-key account of bravery and defiance in the face of torture.

An Arkansas farm boy, Nick Bacon, recalls losing the family place and moving on, "pretty `Grapes of Wrath' stuff." Struggles to make ends meet took him into the Army, and to Vietnam. Having "eliminated the enemy" as a squad leader in a fierce battle on Aug. 26, 1968, he confesses: "I enjoyed the game."

Another tale of Korea, now from Marine Pvt. Hector A. Cafferta, a "Jersey boy," injects some humor. Told to come to Washington for his medal, he responds "Send it." But he is ordered to head south, to tower over "Shorty," President Harry S. Truman.

Lang's parade of honor ends with two minority warriors, Army 1st Lt. Vernon J. Baker, a black man, and the Japanese-American Army 2nd Lt. Inouye. The final two testimonies deepen the tenor of the evening, with tales of racial bigotry during World War II, the time of the "greatest generation." Lang's reading of an Army War College study of "the Negro," is particularly appalling. Inouye, who lost part of an arm in a battle near San Terenzo, Italy, had watched with his father as the Japanese bombed Hawaii. He tells his story against the backdrop of the internment of so many of his people. He himself was able to choose "boot camp instead of concentration camp."

Throughout his solo performance, Lang adopts many accents and postures as he changes the costumes designed by David C. Woolard. Sometimes roaring, sometimes quiet, it is a performance of many parts, an act of its own heroism.