An ensemble show of three men and three women, I Love You presents a series of stand-alone scenes and musical numbers to walk us through the vicissitudes of heterosexual love. From a full-company “Cantata for a First Date” and Stan and Pam’s time-saving measures, the cast goes on to flit nimbly in and out of an impressive number of roles, ages, and accents, as the show progresses from dating through marriage and on to the golden years. All six actors are superlative in their ensemble transformations; each is just as adroit at comic character roles as at straight ones. In the skit and musical number “A Stud and a Babe,” Lindsay Luppino and Laurence Freeman wear profoundly unattractive multi-colored synthetics and pull out the character stops as two dorks who find each other; later Luppino and Freeman play squabbling kids in the back seat of their dueling parents’ car. There’s no upstaging or outshining; these performances are beautifully balanced and superbly sung, and it’s continually a surprise and a treat to see who each of the six will become next.

The show’s style of comedy is advertised as Seinfeldian. I’d say the writing is not quite as snarky (and is occasionally way more earnest; sometimes a little cloyingly), but that’s otherwise a good descriptor of a play of New Yorkish sensibility that goes to gleefully exaggerated lengths to send up the pleasures and plaints of romance — as well as fantasy fixes for it. In one scene, Freeman walks in on Becki Flader and Isaacs after a poor round in the sack, and offers the contractual services of “Jacoby and Meyers and Masters and Johnson”: “If your partner does not take you to heaven, we’ll take them to court.” Later, Luppino shines in the fabulously witty country number “Always a Bridesmaid,” in which she details all the horrid satin and velour she’s had to buy because her friends “can’t assess a man or a dress.” It makes the old phrase into a mantra instead of a plaint.

I Love You takes us clear through to the pitfalls of married life. In “Whatever Happened to Baby’s Parents,” Jacobs and Isaacs are a new mom and dad whose grammar and general social ethoi have been frighteningly regressed, to the consternation of a single friend. Later, Flader and Campagna sing a harried but passionate “Marriage Tango” as they negotiate bedtimes and escaped lizards in anticipation of a rare night of marital nookie.

On the far, far end of all that (and in another excellent bit of character acting), Jacobs and Isaacs play two elderly New York Jews, both widowed, in “Funerals are for Dating.” They’ve both been on the same funeral circuit for some time when Isaac’s character attempts a pick-up. The two actors do old stunningly well, with subtle posture, voice, set of jaw and mouth, and are as echt as they are funny. Their courtship is so charming, so wise, and so free of bullshit, that for a moment it looks like an appealing idea to skip not just the first date, but the whole first round of adult romantic/domestic life.

And there is an abiding sweetness in the show, despite all the comic boredom and strife of love. You know that romantic hope will be celebrated when the Playhouse’s resident “Southern Preacher” comes out to find all the engagements and anniversaries in the audience, gets them a round of applause, and bids each couple to exchange a “big smooch.”

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change | Book and Lyrics by Joe Di Pietro | Music by Jimmy Roberts | Direction and Choreography by Brian Feehan | Musical Direction by Lee Harris | Produced by The Arundel Barn Playhouse in Arundel | through June 30 | 207.985.5552

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Megan Grumbling: mgrumbling@hotmail.com