As part of its International Fringe Encore Comedy Series, SoHo Playhouse is presenting a five-night NYC engagement of Catholic Guilt, following critically acclaimed award-nominated runs at Edinburgh Fringe and the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Written and performed by Kelly McCaughan and directed by Kyle Metzger, the one-hour one-woman boldly irreverent show combines immersive theater with Christian chorales, stand-up comedy, clowning, burlesque, and audience participation, and comes with a warning: it contains distressing or potentially triggering themes, including nudity, scenes of a sexual nature, strong language, and swearing. It’s boundary-breaking fringe to the fullest and funniest with a capital FU. Dressed in a girl’s Catholic-school uniform, which becomes increasingly skimpy as the show progresses, the outrageously subversive and hilarious McCaughan opens by asking the audience to rise for a singalong to the hymn “Sing a New Song unto the Lord” (included in the printed program, though most of the audience at the performance I attended already knew it). She then gives no-holds-barred direct-address accounts of her sexually charged coming-of-age story under the religious tenets imposed by the church, in segments cleverly inspired by the Catholic service (Readings, Gospel, Homily, Offertory, Communion, and Closing “rights” – an intentional rewording of “rites”) and focused on key events from select years of her childhood and youth, while questioning the concepts of sin, confession, and forgiveness as she comes to terms with her carnal cravings. And OMG, does she! There are wet scenes of her drinking the holy water that she informs us was infected with deadly germs, splashing everyone in the audience who admits to breaking any of the Ten Commandments, pouring the bucket over her head, and suggestively eating and drinking the communion bread and wine (and getting off on having the body of Christ in her, as she does with his naked muscular body on the cross) – all making a riotous mess of the stage and herself, as she yells and screams, actively moves around, goes up and down the aisle, enticingly rolls around, smacks her butt, dances, and strips (choreography by Chelsea Murphy). There are also re-enactments of her ‘first times’ with men she pulls up from the audience, segments of asking each of us probing questions and ad-libbing her reactions, and her personal contemplations about the shame, guilt, and the saintly standards of behavior ingrained in her by a religious upbringing, which together make us laugh, cringe, and think. Kelly McCaughan. Photo courtesy of the artist. McCaughan’s unflinchingly audacious, sidesplitting performance is enhanced with mood-setting lighting and voiceovers of her inner thoughts (technical design by Daniel Ison and James Jackson, with AJ Bloomfield serving as technician), projections (by Chris Carcione) on an upstage screen, showing family photos of her younger self, texts of the Catholic dogma that she has us read aloud with her, and those hot images of Christ, along with an over-the-top salacious video (by Matt Kepler) that underscores the Biblical verse, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27), in an outlandish way you’ll never see coming. If you’re ready for a deep dive into the unattainable expectations the church placed on McCaughan and her rebellious response to them, don’t miss this brazenly entertaining and provocative release of her shame in Catholic Guilt. Running Time: Approximately 60 minutes, without intermission. Catholic Guilt plays through Sunday, November 10, 2024, at SoHo Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street, NYC. For tickets (priced at $45.50, including fees), go online.