Popgun Salute

Marching bravely up behind two military-theme plays that were shot to bits earlier this season on Broadway, a second pair of dramas in uniform opened last week. Both proved to be armed with popguns.

The Captains and the Kings, loosely pegged on the career of the famed Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, departed after seven performances.

Something About a Soldier, by Ernest Kinoy, proved fitfully amusing, fitfully poignant, and fitfully provocative. It scouts out the sad-sack destiny of Jacob Epp, a private who looks ''like a bloodshot owl and talks like an IBM computer that has majored in sociology. Sal Mineo makes an appealing Epp, and Epp's captain, Kevin McCarthy, wins a Silver Star for acting sensitivity.

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