The enduring image I have of Roger is not, as you might expect, of his Astrov in Uncle Vanya; or Henry in The Real Thing, or Malcolm in Macbeth, or Hamlet, or Robin Colcord in Cheers, or Lord John Marbury in West Wing, or even as the Sheriff of Rottingham in Robin Hood: Men in Tights. The image that endures for me is from about twenty-five years ago—Nina and I had a house in Montauk, and Rick and Roger had come for the weekend. And even before they had unpacked, Roger disappeared and then emerged from the cellar with a shovel and a trowel and a pair of work gloves, and suddenly there was Nicholas Nickleby on his knees digging and arranging, and by the time they left a few days later, we had a garden.
And that garden—for as long as we had the house, which was many years—produced thyme, tarragon and tomatoes, and roses and tulips. That was Roger. Quietly, without fanfare, he always left behind something of himself. A gift that kept giving and giving and giving.
I’m probably going to get this wrong, but Saint Thomas Aquinas—if I may be permitted to reference a goy icon—Thomas, Saint Tom, caught in some difficult paradox about the perfection of God, decided that we mortals, imperfect as we are, could not possibly conceive of perfection. Well, as a Jew, and someone who had the opportunity to see the man close-up, I beg to differ. If there ever was a perfect thing, Roger was it.
Roger was, in fact, a perfect person. He was gifted beyond comprehension. He was dazzlingly beautiful. He had perfect hair. His mouth and nose also were not chopped liver. You never caught him acting, especially when he was acting. His devotion to Rick, and their shared faith in each other, was an absolute definition of faith itself. He was kind, he was empathetic, he was generous and funny and dependable. And in a career spanning fifty years, he never missed a performance. I’ll say that again: in a fifty-year career, Rog never missed a performance. He was, in fact, the anti-Liza.
In addition to his theatrical accomplishments, he gave our kids a rounded education without even knowing it. Back in the late eighties, we had pretty strict rules about what Sophie and Jessica Brickman, aged four and eight respectively, could and could not watch on television. It was our belief that Sesame Street did not teach children to read and count. What it did was to teach children to watch television.
What they were allowed to watch, our kids, was the RSC production of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. This was available, if you recall, on nine one-hour VHS tapes.
We must have worn out half a dozen copies by the time the girls were in high school. The nine tapes cost back then about fifty bucks. The combined tuition of both girls for four years was about two hundred thousand dollars. Which, do you think, gave them a better education? An appreciation of what it is to be a human being. The importance of family and loyalty. A better understanding of social injustice. And the beauty of language spoken by a master in a role he was born to play.
I am a rational man. For the most part, I believe in things that can be proven and duplicated. But in Roger’s case, I’ll make an exception. This may be cold comfort for Rick, but for the rest of us, Roger isn’t really gone. A verb has changed, that’s all. Present tense to past perfect. Everything else remains, informs, and enlightens us, makes us better. The work, the unforgettable performances, the lives he changed, his brief but powerful presence on earth.
Roger was born Welsh but embraced many things British, among them a framed poster that hangs on their library wall, suggesting to the populace how they might deal with catastrophe. KEEP CALM, it says. KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON. Easier said than done.
But under the circumstances, pretty good advice.