Scary Angel

Scary Angel surfaced out of a box of random props during a production of a play of mine called In My Tribe about a murderer who begins stalking a woman by stealing objects from her house. In an early script, the murderer stole a German Santa but we couldn’t find a Germanic Claus for the show. Director Gareth brought in a box of Christmas decorations for the set and buried beneath a wreath was Scary Angel. The actor portraying the protagonist was frightened by Scary Angel, so I changed the text and German Santa became Scary Angel. At the end of the production, Gareth gave the statue to me, and I put her on the radiator by the front door of my house.



Marianne, the actor who played the protagonist in Tribe, moved in with me for a while during her divorce and Scary Angel still unnerved her. That’s why she had named the statue Scary Angel in rehearsal.


For reasons I can’t comprehend, Marianne wanted Scary Angel to face the living room, but every time she pivoted the statue Scary Angel would turn towards the door. We never caught Scary Angel in the act of moving but we weren’t turning her towards the door. One afternoon while I was out, Marianne shifted Scary Angel to face the living room, went upstairs, came back down and Scary Angel was facing the front door. This freaked out Marianne.


“If she wants to protect the house that way,” I said when I got home, “let her.”


Scary Angel still stands guard, facing my front door.