Keegan’s love fest: 3 plays in 3 weeks bring amore to the stage

If the glitz-filled, social commentary productions that have filled many local theaters’ stages lately have left you feeling a bit detached, there’s a treat here for you.

The Keegan Theatre is now in the midst of “Acts of Love,” a three-week/three-play mini-festival that has kicked off with an amazing bang. The series promises to offer simple yet textured stories that stir the soul.

Although you’ve missed the first production in the series, don’t despair. The next two productions promise to be as elegantly introspective and beautifully produced.

Company member Megan Thrift is the playwright behind this weekend’s play, “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.”

The one-act play features Maggie, a young bartender, full of energy and potential, who finds herself trapped by responsibility, out-of-reach dreams and a failing business.

The woman finds a kindred spirit in patron Clint, another vulnerable soul who helps her search for answers and, just perhaps, a resolution.

“False Romance: An Intergalactic Farce” — the final play in the series — is an expanded version of a 10-minute play originally titled “When Jason Met Maggala” by company member Joe Baker.

The story of young love as told through the lives of Mason, Rod, Maggie and Bea shows how misunderstandings just might be resolved in straightforward ways.

Although we couldn’t get a sneak peek at these plays because of the short production time, if the staging of “Love Letters,” the first play in the series, is any indication, this series may be the sleeper of the summer.

Of course, “Love Letters” is the much-lauded play that earned playwright A.R. Gurney a Pulitzer Prize nomination soon after it was staged in 1988.

Director Christina Coakley and cast Michael Innocenti and Erin Buchanan do the play proud.

Hardly more than two chairs, three tables and few small props are the perfect minimalist setting for the rich story of a nearly 50-year correspondence between a girl and a boy that begins — and ends — in true love even as they develop very separate adult lives.

Innocenti plays the awkward, yet brilliant, Andrew Makepeace Ladd III with just the right touch of nerdy awkwardness as he develops into the savvy U.S. senator who’s still in love with the free-spirited heiress Melissa Gardener, whose life slowly crumbles.

Little wonder the play — told completely through letters — brought tears to many attendees’ eyes.

Expect the following productions, in the capable hands of this company, to do the same.