In Memoriam: Roger Rees

One of the ornaments on our Shakespeare Christmas tree is a little wooden artist's model. It represents "Love's Labour's Lost" because in an RSC production I saw in 1985, Berowne was constantly re-posing his artist's model while the other Navarre academecians were fervently at their studies. It was one of the highlights of a wonderfully comic production. Roger Rees was that Berowne.

I also saw him as Hamlet, and I saw his Antipholus of Syracuse in Trevor Nunn's musical version of The Comedy of Errors. My parents saw him as Nicholas Nickleby in London, and based on the quantity and quality of mentions I heard, Rees's portrayal was probably my dad's all-time favorite performance.

Rees's death last night at 71 is a loss to the stage; but he is still plying his craft—and doing it well—in our memories.

Eric Minton
July 11, 2015

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