Our Angle in Heaven’
Our Angle in Heaven is indeed the correct spelling of the title of Maggie Gallant’s solo show. It’s taken from a misspelled sign that one of her eight characters sees alongside the road in the days following Princess Diana’s death. It’s an emblem of the imperfect, idiosyncratic reactions of a broad spectrum of British subjects during a time of perceived national unity and mourning.
Princess Diana’s death doesn’t hold quite the same resonance for an American audience more than 10 years later. However, seeing other ideas spoken at a time when a nation supposedly comes together can be refreshing. And as the United States projects an image of itself as fully unified behind its new president, it can be useful to recall that we are still individuals and not everyone feels the same.
Gallant, originally from England, performs 12 quick monologues by the eight characters, including a tourist-trap opportunist, a Diana “professional impersonator,” and a disinterested Muslim woman who becomes a star overnight when she is accosted on camera by a white woman desperate for common feeling. The show is quintessentially British in that there is little sentimentality. It presents lovely characters and a calm, straightforward performance full of useful curiosities. – E.C.
Sunday, Feb. 1, 4pm, Salvage Vanguard Theater.
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