Punchline’s ‘I Love You Because’ Indicates Promising Future

If you’re a Boomer or older, you’ve noticed over 25 years the emergence of “the relationship musical” focusing on young adults in a post-modern urbanscape haplessly but doggedly seeking true love in spite of heartaches, baggage and neuroses.

The small casts are young talents you haven’t heard of yet, the writers usually have a couple of promising misfires to their credit after graduating from a New York workshop program, the orchestra is often a piano, the songs and plot pretty predictable if, crucially, heartfelt.

But they are all delivered with such passion that the audience is deservedly won over by the fresh energy and recognizable universality of the experiences being depicted.

Such is Punchline Theatre Company’s adorably scruffy puppy of a production of I Love You Because entering its final weekend this week in Coral Springs. The musical comedy succeeds because every aspect — from the performances to the direction to the material itself — is so appealingly and earnestly presented with both self-deprecating humor and unguarded heart.