Unstuck

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Olivia Levine’s Unstuck begins like a comedy set and ends like a cleansing. She steps into the light holding a fake candle and an orange, instantly setting the tone: part ritual, part bit. “I hope my parents are always happy and that they live forever — of course they will, but just in case,” she intones, before muttering “Done done done done done GUN — goddammit.” It’s funny, until it isn’t. You laugh, then realize you’re inside the mechanics of OCD — the panic disguised as precision, the desperate repetition hiding inside a joke.

As directed by Molly Rose Heller, Levine delivers the show with a stand-up’s velocity — quick, frank, conversational — the kind of comic who can turn shame into rhythm. She tosses oranges into the crowd, flirts with the audience, and quips, “That’s so rude of me — does anyone else want one?” She’s so disarmingly loose that when she blurts, “My mother’s vagina. I popped out looking like an advertisement for kid’s Klonopin,” it lands with the confidence of a comic who knows exactly when to cross the line.

And she crosses a lot of them. Levine calls herself a “chronic public masturbator” — describing in excruciating (and hilarious) detail how she once used her Nokia’s vibrate function “to have an orgasm” during a car ride with her friend’s mom driving. Then, just as the audience dissolves into laughter, she explains that this was where the shame began — the first domino in years of obsessive thought loops about morality, control, and being “a good person.” It’s outrageous and deeply empathetic all at once.

Levine’s relationship stories are just as unguarded. She describes her first college crush — a senior named Reni, “lesbian extraordinaire” — with the intensity of a teenage poet and the hindsight of a stand-up comic. “We kissed,” she recalls, “and I was wet on the spot. So wet. Then the elevator dinged, and I thought someone was about to walk in on our kiss … I broke the kiss, said ‘Kay, bye,’ and walked into the … empty elevator.” The audience howls. Then she adds quietly: “I spent months convincing myself I’d ruined my one shot at love.”

Later, she recounts her “straight-girl phase,” with Lauren, the girlfriend who wanted more dominance in bed. “So I watched dominatrix videos,” Levine says, deadpan. “I just made her laugh.” Then, as if to one-up herself, she admits to checking the woman’s boss’s phone number online and calling him when her girlfriend didn’t answer. “You don’t control everything, Big O,” a voiceover chides her. “Here I do!” she snaps back. The audience laughs, winces, and maybe recognizes themselves in the madness of needing to know, to be right, to be safe.

And through all of it, there’s her mother — not just mentioned, but mythologized. Levine paints her as a Scorpio matriarch with the confidence of a horoscope and the timing of a Catskills comic. “I’m a Scorpio, I manifest,” her mom declares. “Me, Meg Ryan, Jodie Foster all born on the same  day, we get shit done.” In another bit, she recalls her mom misinterpreting her coming out: “Olivia, of course you’re a lesbian. … I slept with a lesbian once in college, and you walk just like her.”

At opening night, I happened to be sitting directly across from that mother — laughing, grimacing, and occasionally pressing her lips together in recognition. You could see her tracking every beat, hearing her own lines played back through her daughter’s voice. She laughed when she was supposed to, sighed when the anxiety spiked, and beamed with something between pride and astonishment. It was like watching a mother hear her child’s diary read aloud to a room full of strangers — and somehow loving it. You can tell she’s been Olivia’s real-life dramaturg since birth.

The show ends as it began — funny, raw, and precariously human. Levine picks up her fake candle, smiles at the crowd, and says softly, “I hope you all really, really like me.” The lights fade, but the feeling doesn’t. Unstuck isn’t tidy or cured or resolved — it’s gloriously alive, like its creator.

Olivia Levine has written the kind of show that makes you laugh until you realize you’re seeing yourself — your neuroses, your bad relationships, your mother’s voice in your head — reflected back at you. It’s filthy, fearless, and healing in equal measure.

Unstuck (through November 2, 2025)

Soho Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.ci.ovation.com/35583/production/1250027

Running time: 60 minutes without an intermission