In Memoriam: Arthur Pembrook

Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths:

And when they talk of him, they shake their heads
And whisper one another in the ear;
And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist,
Whilst he that hears makes fearful action,
With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.
I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste
Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,
Told of a many thousand warlike French
That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent:
Another lean unwash'd artificer
Cuts off his tale and talks of Arthur's death.
Hubert, King John (IV.ii)

It is impossible for me to determine in this moment whether I now write an essay or a

eulogy. Both forms reveal my own ineptitude. The essay suggests a resolution or an answer, for
which there can be neither in these events; the eulogy, a finality, an acceptance of a grim reality
which, for Yours Truly, has not permanently congealed. Even my choice of epigraph betrays my
unwillingness to accept the events of November 17th, for in King John, the young Prince Arthur is
not in fact dead when Hubert speaks. Despite this, using this character as a lens to focus my
thoughts is not inappropriate. In speaking with Helen for the first time in nearly eight years (how
horrible that we forget such warm relations until the gross chill of lifes randomness compels us
to seek them out), she intimated that nothing can hurt [her] anymore. I dont pretend I know
whether she means it, but I am bold enough to suggest that I comprehend her sentimentthat she
is consumed by the very shock that Constance wishes would overwhelm her.
Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost:
I am not mad: I would to heaven I were!
For then, 'tis like I should forget myself:
O, if I could, what grief should I forget!
Constance, King John (III.iii)

It is also a poetic coincidence that my memory of the young man who inspires me to write
this piece bears eponymous relation not only with the Prince but with another of the plays noble
characters, Pembrokewho, upon seeing the body of the young Arthur, cries:
O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!
The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.
Pembroke, King John (IV.iii)

Perhaps this is an essay, after all.

I dont mean for it to be. I have a reflexive tendency to be pedantic when words,
paradoxically, fail me.
My kind of grief is best contained by the bulwark of over-intellectualization. Attempting
to discover the poetry or irony or history of a particular moment seems to assuage the emotional
and existential trauma of times like these. Still, it is shamefaced. The attemptand worse, the
explanation of itreeks of solipsism. I suppose it is too much to hope that someone else grieving
the loss of Arthur Pembrook is responding in the same way. I imagine many more would be
perturbed by we few, we unhappy few.
In that pursuit, I havent found the writer yet who penned the mot juste for this kind of
travesty. Housmans To An Athlete Dying Young admittedly vibrates in the right tone, but the
pathos of a young mans death for the pastoral poet seems more informed by the stolen victories
of a young runner than for the phenomenology of an early demise. Metaphorically speaking,
Arthur would have been an acceptable runner for Housman. He, too, will not swell the rout / Of
lads that wore their honours out, / Runners whom renown outran / And the name died before the
man. Arthurs tale too, is one of future splendor robbed, though I do not share Housmans
sentiment that our runner was clever to slip from fieldsor stageswhere glory does not stay, or
that the echo of long-faded applause sounds as good as silence to ears stopped with earth. Nor do
I (and I must insist, nor did Arthur) think that he would have gone to where the encores are ever
demanded. Bereft, then, of two kinds of comfortof clich and convictionwe struggle on. I
dont know how to speak of my current sadness in a way that is both truthful and kindlier.
I first met Arthur in what was supposed to be my annus miriablis. The disappointment of
that year was greatly mitigated by his friendship. He was nearly twelve and I was a fresh-faced
eighteenI look back in embarrassment at how vastly more mature I considered myself than he,
how aged in years and learned in theatrical wisdom: what a pompous prat, I was. The gulf of six
small years was, to me, a gargantuan experiential void over which I had stoically navigated and
Arthur, round-cheeked and near-castrati, had just begun to flounder. Still, this character flaw of
mine was accidentally valuable, because it expressed a piece of my ambition which Arthur shared
and linked us as comrades forever. He, too, harbored a deep love of theatreand, despite the ego
and exuberance of pubescence, did so for none of the selfish dreams that typically delude young
performers. He reveled in the beauty and power and potential of an empty stage. For some, this
seemed pretentious. Fluent in pretentiousness myself, I diagnosed it as precocious: I liked him.
Theatrically speaking, I had the privilege of being close to Arthur during his most crucial
years. Young men working as much in the theatre as Arthur did are made or broken in that bizarre
transmutation between androgynous apprentice and mannish journeyman. The superficial pressure
alone of asserting talent in a field as capricious as ours is stressful even for an adult, but for a
young man attempting to identify himself, it can be particularly brutal. This is without considering
the now-tawdry trials of fledgling manhood: conforming or rebuking standard masculinity, the
practice of wit, the ascription of pedagogy, the navigation of sexual boundaries, the freshman
political intrigue of establishing and maintaining a social circle. Speaking about this now, several
years post hoc, seems ludicrous in Arthurs case: he adopted the radical Leftist notion of smashing
these structures and rebuilding them to his own definitions rather than augment himself for the
sake of their trite expectations. Even then, he was something of a revolutionary at heart (the hair
in later years would blazon this). At the time, however, there existed a young lad, eager to grow
into himself and into the playing space, craving the attention of his peers and particularly those
artists who represented his future pursuits, and many boys in his echelon who expressed similar
desires washed out. Not so, Arthur. In fact, his natural intellectual magnetism yanked him ever

stronger toward those excellences that gave a firm-but-loving middle finger to the First Standard
Deviation of the contemporary teenaged Bell Curve. And many of these were aesthetic loves which
we shared, not the least of which was Shake-speare.
Arthur was drawn to the poetry of the English Renaissancea natural Romantic, a junior
warrior, he was de Bergerac-in-training, and I take no small pride in having helped stoke that fire
within him. During our time together in theatre summer camp, while I led Arthurs group in
studying those Shake-speare plays they would be most likely to come across in high school, Arthur
was the avant-garde in memorization and appreciation. Wed walk together around the courtyard,
keeping pace with the pentameter; I gently adjusted his vocal cadence while he used the exercise
to ignore self-conscious obstacles of text and focus on its emotional resonance. He would soak up
dramaturgy with his characteristic open brain, heralding his later autodidactic nature. It became
routine for us, and Arthur stood outas he would grow to do so oftenfrom his peers as a human
of genuine interest, of intrigue, of heart, and of substance.
What is all this to say about who young master Pembrook was, or the man he was to become
during our long separateness? After all, despite being a nexus in Freudian and dramatic terms, two
years in adolescence together doesnt credit me as an authority on the gestalt of Arthur, nor on the
young man into which he had barely grown. Reviewing his Facebook in the days surrounding his
death, I was introduced to several iterations of his identity which I had never had the privilege of
intimately knowing. I dont think I flatter myself or my memory of him, however, to say that so
many of the reaching branches of his mature tree drew inspiration from my memory of what was
once a bright, blond sapling. In reading the numerous testimonials by his friends, watching his
work that had been uploaded to the internet, speaking with those who knew him better than I in
his final weeks, my feelings metamorphosed from deciding Arthur had become an interesting
stranger to the realization that he was simply an old friend who had adopted the subtle sculpting
of life in stride. He was as much the bright, blond sapling he ever was, albeit with much more
blond and a brightness fostered from an unruly sheen to a lighthouse beacon. And, if possible, he
displayed more potential at twenty than at twelve. How the hell does anyone excite more
possibilities with fewer years of life? Perhaps it is the cosmic nature of brighter torches to burn out
quicker. Leave it to Arthur to give this romantic trope corporeal form.
Arthur and I spoke several times in the last few yearsand never flippantly or in blas
terms, which was singularly refreshing. Never once did my phone blip in the middle of the day to
see a message from him asking about the weather on my side of the Continental Divide, but rather
to glean my thoughts on the political ramifications of the election of the new pope, or about the
relevance of theatre practice to contemporary dialogue. Our discussions of cosmology took less
the tone of the pupil inquiring of the teacher than Arthur using me as a sounding board to reflect
upon his own knowledge, to challenge and hone it, and to endlessly ask questions. The tenor of
this essay, which very much suggests a focus reflected on my interactions which Arthur, is thus
revealed for its fraudulent perspective. In all things, from our boyish jaunts reciting endless
couplets to our later, more somber interactions, Arthur was the catalyst, the driving force in pursuit
of truth and beauty, the anxious Friend of the ABC Cafe throwing chairs onto the barricade. In
whatever lame sense I felt I had led Arthur, the sincere reflection of the last week has demonstrated
that I only ever doggedly lagged behind his indefatigable eagerness. Arthur was truly the one
interacting with me: the truth of this, as I write it here, is undermined only by the ego of firstperson pronouns.
There are ways in which we reduce our praises of the deadparticularly the untimely
deadto platitudes. That Arthur was a facile thinker with an incisive mind is, I believe, one of

these, though I obviously dont intend to belittle anyone who is good enough to remind us of these
virtues of his. Rather, the challenge is put to me to try to illuminate this piece of his character in a
way that can be said singularly, without passive artifice or clich, and so summon up the nature of
him that is otherwise dismissed by ambiguity. Im afraid Ill failbut that, I think, is his fault. For
Arthurs intellectual spirit defied convention: he was intrinsically drawn to all art, literature, music,
dialectic, and data that compelled him. It was his only form of avarice, this thirst for the true, the
good, and the beautifula Greek addiction for which rehabilitation is a sin. Without alluding to
his uncompromising loyalty, his tenderness (born, I think, of an early kind of ostracism), his talent,
and his trigger-happy capacity for love, his infinite energy bent on bettering his mind is what, I
believe, would have been the benchmark for his success in later years, and was the locus of so
much of our fascination and admiration of him. Others can and will speak to those equally
impressive standards of his character, cultivated too with singular alacrity almost unheard of in
our species at his age. Im grateful for the insight they will provide into that Arthur-ness with
which I was less in touch, and consider it a privilege to experience even in third-person and
posthumously. These reflections on his still-living impact, such as they are, are all I have to
contribute.
For Arthur, as for King Johns Prince, there is an irony in trying to accept his death. Too
often the cants are warmed up and reoffered to us that those we love are never gone. Perhaps they
arent. Some of the dead certainly seem to me to be more dead than others. I wonder whether or
not this is a reflection on the intensity of their life, like the duration of retina burn from
incandescent lamps. In Arthurs case, I dont believe anyone will find it then a platitude or a poetic
indulgence to say with conviction that the light-trail of his memory will, as vibrantly as his
undiscerning beacon was in life, sear into the canvas of our current existences. This is the
conclusion I have come to which explains a good deal of my ambivalence at the beginning of this
rumination: the reality of his death has not solidified for me simply because it is not banal to assert
he, somehow, still lives. How can one passively accept that Athenas owl has flown when one still
hears its mellifluous singing so clearly? Furthermore, the reoccurring imagery of Shake-speares
Arthur in my head, far from the pithy connection of name alone, begins to take ironic shape. So
much despair from Prince Arthurs death dominates the major actions of the text is paralleled by
his continuing (if not ultimately continued) life begins to hold greater significance for both our
audiences. One Arthur is taken from us, and seems to our shocked senses and through our
memories to be alive as ever. Another is thought to be taken, yet for a time still livesbut both
griefs mimic and enforce each other with both poetic and ironic validation.
Arthur Pembrook, I do know, appreciated such ironies.
What now is to be said, or to be done? Failing, as I have, to put any sort of critical or
theoretical bow on this unbelievable misfortune, Im left with the same feeling of impotence as, I
am sure, many are. Ive offered my own condolences and introspections which, despite their
intention, seems to lie as flat and cold as the very platitudes theyre meant to transcend. Their hope
of revealing some manner of higher comfort, poetic resonance, or even wry humora pitiful balm
to a deep, deep woundonly reinforces the feeling of futility with which I began. Arthur
Pembrook has been taken from usrandomly, chaotically, unfairly. The math forces us to rue the
callous nature of our physical universe. Where is the warmth and light and love of such a brilliant
young man, and how did do we have the misfortune to exist in a world indifferent to them?
The only response I can possibly submit is to celebrate the realization Ive had on Arthur
since writing this, which is that he taught me the values I always felt I was teaching him. Tenacity,
perspicacity, unbridled passion: these were the hallmarks of his character and, I believe, should

now be ours. Mired in circumstance without a clear answerhe would have debated on, read on,
danced on, ultimately persevered until he was ready to take his final bow. His comfort was tertiary
to his desire to know the truthful and beautiful and experience them without reservationand we
should learn from him one final time. If you feel, as I do, that conventional offerings for such a
horrific event lack relief, and attempts to rationalize it leave one feeling even colder and without
humorthen do as Arthur did. Persevere. These existential quibbles are now our crosses to bear,
despite the pain they bring, and he wouldnt have tossed aside the burden merely because it
compelled a kind of psychomachia. We owe it to him to struggle through the iniquities of lifes
worst questions with more than resolve, but with exultation. This essay, as poor as it may be, is
my first attempt in his memory. In so doing, we face the worst of conclusions, the deepest of
ironies, the best of intentions, and the saddest of consequences: but it is better than looking away,
than retreating to the back of the stage and hiding our heads from an audience unwilling to brave
the same darkness or speak poetry into the void. Arthur wouldnt have quailed from such a stage.
No one could have wrestled him from that spotlight.
In the Fourth Act of King John, Prince Arthur leaps from the wall, knowing it may kill
him, rather than live in torment. In the only monologue Shake-speare gives to a child actor, he
resolves himself to a Kierkegaardian leap of faith rather than console himself with the grim
circumstances of his reality. For a final submission, I dont believe this is antithetical to the attitude
of Arthur Pembrook in life: bold, determined, and intellectually reckless in pursuit of better truths,
more poignant beauties, and greater freedoms. I humbly posit that it is a fitting epitaph, and I feel
must be the end of my ruminations in this way. I do not know what else there is to do, what else is
to be done. Ive endeavored to do as I think as both Prince Arthur and master Pembrook might
have, and leapt into the darkness, either to escape from the calumny of our collective sadness or
fail trying. Perhaps I landed on the rocks as well. I feel that Arthur Pembrook would have
applauded the attemptas steadfast a friend as ever he was, cheering from the wings, the house,
and at our elbows, with more vigor than he ever reserved for his own triumphs. I urge those reading
to attempt the same and take pride. We dont have him any longer, and that is the grim resolution
of his story. Theres naught to do any longer but leap.
I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it.
Arthur, King John (IV.iii)
Joshua Kelly
Missoula, Montana
November, 2016