Herman Shumlin, producer of "The Great Big Doorstep," is slated to join the Army as soon as his new show opens on Broadway. He might as well save wear and tear on the induction center and enlist right now; his show's chances of staying in New York any longer than he will are about as slim as the thread he's based his story on.

Essentially, "The Great Doorstep" is "Tobacco Road" with a Louisiana accent, and without the filth. The former is annoying, and the latter leaves you without even anything to argue about. The result is a waste of the fine comedy sense of Louis Calhern, who plays the leading role of Commodore Crochet, and of the sensitive dramatic talent of Dorothy Gizh, here his over suffering wife.

The Crochets are a peculiar bunch. They live in a decrepit shack in the bayous, breed children at will, and dream about building a house to go with the beautiful doorstep their oldest son found floating down the river one day. Papa is lazy, shiftless, and--inevitably--lovable. Mother is patient. The children are characters. And that's the play, with bliss in the form of a bunch of lilies inevitably hoisting the Crochets a step nearer heaven.

Authors Goodrich and Hackett have turned out some clever lines, and there's more than a little beauty in some of the Commodore's eye-raising views on life in the bayous. But they had little to start out with, in the form of material, and wound up with still less. Joy Geffen and Jeanne Perkins Smith, as the two Crochet daughters, and Jack Manning at the son, are effective and almost believable. But the play as a whole is a loss; it tries hard to be slight and unpretentious, and succeeds so well that for all practical purposes it might just as well never be seen. Mr. Shumlin will like the Army.