With a well-groomed impudence and a cheerful antic wit, a new musical, "The Last Sweet Days of Isaac," arrived … last night for what should be a long stay. It is one of the most preposterous shows in New York and yet also one of the happiest.

I suspect that this very chic and up-to-the-second musical started out as a satire on the rock musical and the freaked-out generation. Yet in some strange way the approach seems to have been absorbed by the subject matter, and even if "The Last Sweet Days of Isaac" was intended as a kind of affectionate put-down, what has emerged is something very positive and extraordinarily attractive.

The book and lyrics by Gretchen Cryer and the music by Nancy Ford are easily among the best of the present Off Broadway crop…. The second half of the evening is marginally less entertaining than the first...