Love is not in the stars but on the cards in Lovepuke as three couples and two loners meet, compete and score sexually and then numerically. They demonstrate with snappy and often very funny examples the elation as well as the deflation of love, sex and the whole rigmarole of modern courtship.

Good-looking Ivan (Simon Smith) and dewy-eyed Janice (Kate McGill) look like the perfect couple but Ivan has a roving eye, while Kevin (Steve Tamarapa) is a brash boaster and Louise (Gaby Stevenson) is not content with just one man. Nathan (Andrew Kaye) is a nice mummy’s boy and the perfect mate (socially if not sexually to start with) for the slightly more adventurous Marissa (Catherine Colwill).

Sitting above the battlefield astride a ladder is Glen (Kenny King), a cynic and a bit of a wanker, who spends most of the time commenting on the progress or otherwise of the others before he too is infected with their madness. The second loner is Hermione (Kate O’Rourke) who is a constipated poet of bodily fluids. She gets infected too and it shouldn’t be hard to guess whom she ends up with as a partner to provide the obligatory happening ending that Glen has been organizing.

Under Lyndee Jane Rutherford’s exuberant direction (10 out of 10) the appealing and attractive cast perform (10 out of 10) with great energy, a pleasing speed and fine timing. The final five minutes or so are too drawn out (5 out of 10) and it takes too long to reach a climax though, like some of the couples, I’m not even certain a climax was ever reached.

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Take three very different couples made up of six even more different individuals, one performance poet whose theme is bodily secretions (or the failure of same), a cynical singleton narrator, plus seven chairs, a step ladder and a stack of key-word flash cards, and the stage is set for Lovepuke.

Written by Duncan Sarkies some 15 years ago (although it was 13 years ago that it won best of the Fringe in Wellington), Lovepuke has stood the test of time. In essence, when it comes to human relationships, nothing has changed – apart, perhaps, from the technology by which we communicate.

Back in the day it was probably seen as a post modern deconstruction of young love (I was going to say ‘warts and all’ but actually they don’t get mentioned). And so it is: a devastatingly funny foray into the fundamental truths that keep our fluids flowing. In a word: juicy.

These abiding truths are batted and bantered like shuttlecocks on multiple badminton courts. The feather-lightness of elevated elation is counterpointed by the weighty knob that either gives each journey direction and purpose, or causes it to succumb to the harsher realities of gravity.

Through open auditions, director Lyndee-Jane Rutherford (the busiest girl in town: also acting in TROY The Musical and rehearsing for The Rivals, next at Circa) has assembled an ideal cast. The script is something of a score – and yes, they all do, with varying degrees of score-carded success – and Rutherford orchestrates their individual, coupled and ensemble performances with sure pacing and sensitivity, ensuring emotional truth always transcends the exacting technique that supports their collective task.

Kenny King captures the protestations of the happy singleton, Glen, to a T (for Tell me another one) while Kate O’Rourke’s poet Hermione is patience on a stool, proving dance skills are as much about stillness as movement, before her quirky word-plays finally find expression.

As Ivan, so focused on the rear vision mirror he fails to appreciate what’s in front of him, Simon Smith meets his non-match splendidly in Kate McGill’s richly drawn Janice-the-wrestler-cum-dreamer.

Somewhat larger than life – in their own minds too, so the performances are valid – Louise (Gaby Stevenson) and Kevin (Steve Tamarapa) play out the live-for-the-moment goodtime guy and gal with painful perspicacity, each in their own singular way in denial and destined to suffer accordingly.

The awkward innocence of ‘love’, just as likely as the other scenarios to make them puke – albeit with fear and/or excitement rather than revulsion – comes (or not, as the case may be) with nice, middle-class but would-be adventurous Marissa (Catherine Colwill) and the ultra-conservative Nathan (Andrew Kaye – also the producer). Their authenticity is deeply poignant at times.

In exploring these archetypes Sarkies transcends cliché to articulate true, universal and timeless human experiences with great wit and insight, and this ensemble does him proud. The self-referenced juxtaposition of romantic love with bodily functions is a stroke of brilliance and the key word flash cards are conceived and handled with great flair.

A special thought for stage manager Barbara Donnelly who sorts the cards, operates the lights (a fine Rob Larsen design) and sound (a good selection of heart-rending pop songs) then after the show has to clear up the word-strewn stage and put them all back exactly in order. Bravo.

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