Goodbye, Peter.

This morning, we learned that one of Jacques' (and my) oldest and closest friends just died [in the company of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, it seems].  He was a lamed vavnik of the American theatre and movies, a self-effacing genius whose influence is everywhere but whose name barely comes up on Google:  Peter Kass.

He was 85 (and had suffered from severe short-term memory loss for several years), so it was not out of the natural order of things, but that doesn't soften the blow when one of your essential people is suddenly gone.  One of the ways you can tell who really, really matters to you is that when they die, it affects you like a physical injury.  Shock and inflammation set in, a feeling like you've been split by an axe from the top of the head down to the navel and the wound is throbbing and swelling and clotting.

So forgive me if I don't say much for a few days.

UPDATE:  Very fortunately, on my cut-short trip to New York in late May, the one thing I made sure to do -- the only planned reunion to survive the truncation -- was to stop and have supper with Peter and Nance in Brooklyn Heights on my way to the airport.  Not for any ominous reason, just because we'd had them over for dinner almost every week when we lived in New York (though towards the end it would take J about 40 minutes just to get over into and then back from the next-door studio where we ate) and we missed each other; in particular, Peter and Jacques missed each other -- the love between those two men, which went back 50 years, was almost mystically strong and deep.  I was a poor representative, but still the next best thing, and I called J from their apartment and took pictures for him.  What if I hadn't done that!  Sometimes doing the right thing feels as providential as just missing being hit by a train -- like one of those times you were kindly and invincibly protected from your own stupidity.

Comments

[RW Rogers]

{{ }}.

[david]

I remember him quite well. I found him fierce and yet encouraging, in his own way, about my theatrical aspirations.

He's the second great man of the theatre I've known who's died, largely overlooked, in the past two years.

Me sorry, me sister.

[amba]

Who was the other one?

[Ron]

Even with the blessing of the fortunate recent visit, it's still difficult when life replaces the person with just the memory for us...and what care and support can be sent through this rivulet of the internet I send upstream to you, Amba and J.

[karen]

I'm so sorry, amba. Loss hurts like a word i'd like to type, but which is not appropriate.

OTOH- did God try to soften the cut of the axe w/an new life on the way?

[amba]

It was good timing.

I think I've gone into denial mode now -- one takes a breather from grief by simply ceasing to believe it for a while.

[david]

The other one was Anthony Cornish, with whom I worked at Cornell, and who plucked me out of retirement and cast me in As You Like It at the Pearl Theatre -- which turned out to be my happy farewell to the professional theatre -- in 1992.

[david]

oops. Screwed up the link. Sorry.

[amba]

Look again. (The magic of HTML . . . You need to write live links into the comments, if you know how; otherwise they get cut off . . . it's stupid. TypePad's software should simply convert them.)

[Ruth Anne]

He was credited everywhere..."and a Kass of thousands!"

Hugs to you and J as you grieve.

[Melinda]

Condolences. Glad you got to see him one more time.

[michael Reynolds]

A great face. I'm wary of reading too much into an image, but you see some pain there, some wariness, some compassion and a lot of humor. I don't know if that's what the guy was like in reality, but it's how he looks to me.

[amba]

Right on the nose, Michael.

Also something else -- dignity or self-possession or -- a kind of pride not vanity; he knew who he was.