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Company was a rather avant-garde success when it first reached Broadway in 1970. The plotless, contemporary show about Bobby, a bachelor whose married pals are throwing him a 35th-birthday party, won Tonys for Sondheim, librettist George Furth, and director-producer Hal Prince when it opened. Now John Doyle is pushing the story even further away from the theatrical mainstream. As he did in Sweeney Todd, he gets rid of the pit orchestra, enlisting the fourteen actors to play the score. Some traditionalists treat his departure from a century of Broadway practice as a gimmick. But I can’t see how an actor playing a trumpet is intrinsically more gimmicky than, say, farmers and cowmen bursting into song, or crapshooters dancing around in a sewer. In fact, because musicals are ultimately about the music, it almost makes more sense to do things Doyle’s way, so we can see where all that sound’s coming from. The technique wasn’t his invention, of course: Sam Mendes gave actors instruments in Cabaret eight years ago, and even now, Striking 12, a charming if overextended downtown show, goes a step further, featuring musicians who act instead of actors who play. But Doyle makes the approach yield unusual riches. Company shows once again that he doesn’t just use it to create extra vitality onstage; for him it’s another way to illuminate the material. — Jeremy McCarter

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• Jeremy McCarter's Full Review (12/11/06)

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