“I’ve been having orgasms since I was three,” Lois Robbins announces at the beginning of L.O.V.E.R. That, and the image of a bare-shouldered Robbins teasingly pulling a sheet over her body on the cover of the playbill for this one-woman show, which she wrote and stars in, may give the impression that the titular acronym and the play itself are preoccupied with matters of the flesh—and for a while, that seems true, with Robbins, as “The Woman,” segueing from her early adventures in masturbation to her boy-crazy teen years to the intense but troubled relationships that defined her young adulthood.
Robbins has described L.O.V.E.R. as 75 percent autobiography—”You don’t remember things exactly as they happened,” she explained in an interview, adding, “I’m also trying to make it theatrical”— though one suspects that figure grows higher when The Woman addresses both the family that raised her and the one she eventually formed herself. By the time the latter emerges, the play has shifted gears a bit, or at least expanded its focus, to become a journey of self-discovery beyond the boudoir, and the washing machine. (Don’t ask.) The Woman recounts a harrowing medical ordeal, dispenses parenting advice and finally resolves, “I’m passionate about becoming the best version of myself.”
If that expressed goal seems vague and New-Agey, so do many of the more sober observations in L.O.V.E.R., which under the direction of Karen Carpenter—whose previous credits include, fittingly, Love, Loss, and What I Wore and a regional production of The Vagina Monologues—fares best in its lighter, breezier moments. While Robbins’s writing lacks the incisive wit of a Nora Ephron or Eve Ensler, she’s an engaging enough presence on stage, flapping her long limbs and showing off a scrupulously well-preserved figure as she traverses Jo Winiarski’s elegant, distinctly feminine set, conjuring figures from old friends and lovers to a sympathetic doctor. (Her impersonations are more notable for their enthusiasm than their aptitude, particularly when they involve accents; the doctor could have been from Australia or the Bronx, for all I know.)
But any universal message that Robbins is trying to relay is hampered by the dual sense of self-pity and self-congratulation that can accompany The Woman’s recollections, particularly as it becomes ever clearer that she has enjoyed certain resources not available to every gal. L.O.V.E.R.’s central problem is not so much Robbins’s – that is, The Woman’s—obvious privilege as her lack of awareness of its relevance. The Woman describes growing up in the suburbs, in a family of obvious means. She begins attending summer camp at five; years later, a boyfriend proposing marriage declares, “I expect your parents will keep me in the style to which I’ve become accustomed while dating you.”
The Woman rejects him, but dallies with a string of other losers, eventually marrying one. She blames her lack of self-esteem, stemming from an overprotective father who “strips me of the ease I’d found in my body and replaces it with shame,” while her mother relays the message that she is “nothing without a man.” Eventually, The Woman finds Mr. Right, in the form of a guy she calls Arthur. As has been well documented, Robbins is married to Andrew Zaro, chairman of Cavalry Portfolio Services, a debt collection company; articles detailing the couple’s glamorous homes and art collection have appeared in numerous publications. Curiously, though, we learn less about Arthur than we do about The Woman’s other beaus—whose names have also been changed, she quips, “to protect the not-so-innocent.” Her second husband, she explains simply, is “a very private person.”
The Woman also garners emotional support from her parents, once they stop tormenting her, and from a pair of longtime girlfriends, and other chums. When one confides that she’s having an extramarital affair, The Woman chides her: “He doesn’t have to wake up every day to your bad breath,” she says of her pal’s new lover, “or help your kids with their homework, or put up with your crazy family, or”—the coup de grace—”pay your bills.”
But however qualified or, um, quaint L.O.V.E.R.‘s portrait of self-actualization may seem, one never doubts Robbins’s determination, or her chutzpah. “I finally figured out my disappointment is mine,” The Woman resolves near the end, no longer flirting with the victim role. “My unhappiness belongs to me.” It’s an admirable realization, even—perhaps especially—coming from a self-described “princess,” who clearly wanted to grow up, on her own terms.
L.O.V.E.R. opened September 8, 2019, at Signature Center and runs through November 2. Tickets and information: lovertheplay.com
