Let's hear it for "Company," the newest and slickest thing in town. As smooth as the steel-and-glass buildings of midtown Manhattan and as jumpy as an alley cat, it is Broadway's first musical treatment of nerve ends.

[Robert] is a bachelor whose closest friends include three girls and five married couples. At the beginning and end, he is being given a surprise party by the pairs on his 35th birthday. In between, he remembers troublesome scenes with all of them and at the finish decides that marriage is—well, go see for yourself.

Brilliance is all in this show. George Furth's book is diamond-sharp, funny and chilling both. But Stephen Sondheim's songs, while equally scintillating, shine through time and again with a welcome and essential warmth. They make the evening. And interestingly, though Sondheim obviously has been listening to the sounds of today, he wisely favors his own...