By Patrick Pacheco

IN THE MUSICAL "Sunday in the Park with George" Mandy Patinkin sang a song about putting a career together "bit by bit, inch by inch . . . ounce by ounce, link by link." That slow but steady climb to a new plateau applies to seven actors who, in varying degrees, have seen their commitment to theater pay new dividends.

This season, the gods have smiled on Stephen Lang in "A Few Good Men," Randy Graff in "City of Angels," Jonathan Hadary in "Gypsy," Nathan Lane in "The Lisbon Traviata," Mercedes Ruehl in "Other People's Money," David Carroll in "Grand Hotel" and Courtney B. Vance in "My Children! My Africa!"

The proverbial "overnight sensation" does not apply to any of these actors. Theater-goers attending "A Few Good Men" may riffle through their program to check the biography of the actor playing the gung-ho lieutenant colonel. But savvy connoisseurs will remember Stephen Lang as Hap in the Dustin Hoffman revival of "Death of a Salesman." Likewise, before he essayed the role of the long-suffering Herbie in "Gypsy," Jonathan Hadary had labored hard in runs of "Torch Song Trilogy" and "As Is."

It's almost as if there were some "vague kind of committee judging you," says Nathan Lane, who paid his dues in the George C. Scott revival of "Present Laughter" and in "The Common Pursuit," among others.

"At some point in your career, these guys say, 'Okay, let's give this poor slob a break.' The attention you receive for a flashy role is really the cumulative effect of them [the media, producers, fellow actors] having seen you do other things. You've finally proven yourself."

Even so, the theater world can be notoriously stingy in doling out its approbation, allowing equally talented actors to labor in obscurity. It can also just as easily withdraw its favor if the actor can't parlay the success into new challenges. The list of Tony Award winners, for example, is full of examples of "Whatever Happened To . . . " As Mercedes Ruehl pointed out, the satisfaction one enjoys from the attention is "momentary."

"The whole thing is a process," she said. "You simply reach a plateau in the ongoing quest."

Still, given the arbitrary nature of the theater, that is reason enough for these actors to celebrate. After all, as Patinkin - no overnight sensation himself - sang in "Sunday in the Park": ". . . all it takes is time and perseverance with a little luck along the way."

"It's not like you go home and look at a blueprint and say, 'By 1982, I'll be here,'" says Nathan Lane. "I've made a lot of decisions that looked planned but weren't. You don't have a lot of control over your career."

What Lane didn't plan on at all, he says, was that his role as Mendy, the "opera queen" with a passion for Maria Callas in "Lisbon Traviata," would garner him the best reviews of his career. "It's all an accident," he quips. In fact, he had thought that his best chance of breaking out from the pack came last season in "The Film Society," at the Second Stage, in which he played a professor in a South African boys' school who grapples with his political conscience - or lack thereof. But his notices weren't as enthusiastic as they were for "Lisbon."

"You just never know," says the actor who, early on, in a bid to have some control over his career, became part of a stand-up comedy team known as Stack and Lane. Based in Los Angeles at the time, the duo's success led to Lane's appearance on a short-lived 1982 television series, "One of the Boys," which also featured Dana Carvey and Meg Ryan. But the actor says he was unhappy 3,000 miles away from New York and the theater and in the early '80s decided to return. He plied his craft on Broadway ("Present Laughter," "Wind in the Willows") and off ("Common Pursuit") and appeared in the New York Shakespeare Festival's productions of "Measure for Measure" and "A Mid-Summer Night's Dream."

Commenting on Off-Broadway's low pay scale, he says, "Obviously it's not always about making money, otherwise I'd be in L.A. right now playing somebody's zany neighbor in a series or having one of my own."

Indeed, with "Lisbon Traviata" recently having finished its run, the actor is due to start rehearsals for Manhattan Theater Club's revival of Terence McNally's doublebill, "Bad Habits." In the first act, he plays Dr. Pepper, the head administrator of an insane asylum. In the second, set in a rest place for married couples, he's featured as the wheelchair-bound husband whose wife, played by Kate Nelligan, pushed him down the stairs.

THE ROLES are decidedly different from the flamboyant Mendy, and that's the point. "You really typecast yourself," he says. "You have to be careful what you do. I've been a character actor for a long time now. Mendy is just one of the many kinds of things I do."

Now that Mendy has increased his stock a bit, however, Lane doesn't plan to be entirely faithful to the theater. He has featured roles in the new Diane Keaton film, "The Lemon Sisters," and in John Patrick Shanley's "Joe Versus the Volcano" with Tom Hanks. He is also not averse to going back to television. "I'm willing to sell out soon," he says. "Just show me the dotted line."

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