Gregory Peck1916-2003
With the Lincolnesque image of his Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird standing up against Southern racism, the word "decency" must come to the minds of many when they remember Gregory Peck. Like that 1962 film, Peck was an emblem of Hollywood liberalism. He embodied the generosity and pride of thoughtful craftsmen doing good work in a good cause, and he bolstered the image with his ruggedness, his superb voice, his wry and gentle humor, and his suggestion of a man who carries heavy responsibility without self-pity or resentment.
In retrospect, Peck’s previous roles (sometimes in pompous films) took on the reflected glory of Atticus, for which they had prepared him. Peck never seemed hampered by his lack of range, and few had the heart to hold his limitations against him, seeing how important they were to his strength. He had no great flair for comedy, although he was able to make fun of his own stiffness, to awkward and touching effect, in Raoul Walsh’s Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951). In his other Walsh film, The World in His Arms (1952), Peck showed he could be comfortable in the kind of swaggering-adventurer role to which all his instincts were opposed. Following those instincts (for solitude, for causes) to their darker ends, he made a formidable Ahab in John Huston’s Moby Dick (1956).
The director with whom Peck created the most consistent body of work (six films) was Henry King. In Twelve O'Clock High (1949), Peck played a commanding officer who pushes his men to the limit for their own good, advising them, "Consider yourselves already dead." He suffers from his isolation, forcing himself to be tougher than he is, but there’s no masochism in the man, and King’s refusal to view him as a neurotic or a victim finds a perfect counterpart in Peck’s earnest integrity.
In King’s The Gunfighter (1950), Peck turned in a rueful, reasonable portrayal of a man haunted by his reputation as the fastest gun in the West. The film’s most indelible image is of a man hunched over a table in the corner of a saloon, steeling himself for the next punk or curiosity-seeker to come along.
Peck gave one of his best performances in Robert Parrish’s superb and little-seen The Purple Plain (1954), playing an embittered, traumatized pilot who recovers his will to live while stationed in Burma during World War II. The quietism of the film is moving, and Peck was its ideal exponent.
— Chris Fujiwara
Irish Pages
It’s being hailed as the Irish Granta. The Belfast-based Irish Pages, a literary journal of contemporary writing from Ireland and abroad, makes its American debut this Monday (June 23) at a launch event for its Volume 1, Number 2 (Autumn/Winter 2002/2003), at Emerson College. Edited by Chris Agee, Irish Pages features work by writers such as Seamus Heaney, W.G. Sebald, and Wendell Berry. "The sole criteria for inclusion," according to the promotional material, "is the distinction of the writing and the integrity of the individual voice." Or, in the words of Agee over the phone from New York, "We publish anything that we think is good."
According to Agee, Irish Pages is the first journal of its kind to come out of Ireland. "I can’t actually think of an international Irish journal," he says. "One hasn’t existed. Irish journals tend to stay within Ireland." Half of Irish Pages is devoted to Irish writing, the other half to writers from abroad, such as Africa, Croatia, Poland, and the US. "Part of our mission is to be well known in the United States so that Americans know what other people are thinking about the US," says Agee. Indeed, called "The Justice Issue," this edition focuses on justice post-September 11th.
Each issue includes an editorial, translated work, a portfolio of art or photography, fiction, nonfiction, essays, memoirs, and literary journalism. A section called "From the Irish Archives" features "near contemporary writing by a not living, unpublished, or not well known" Irish author, explains Agee (in this case, five essays by Eoghan Ó Tuairisc). And "The Publishing Scene" section "takes a critical look at some issue in the publishing world," he says. In this issue, Andrew Crumey criticizes Granta for its reliance on top-20 type lists. The author himself was originally selected for Granta’s 2003 list of "The Best of Young British Novelists," until he pointed out to them that at 41, he exceeded the eligible age. "We’ve got a maverick edge," laughs Agee. "We’re not going to play the establishment literary game."
Despite an establishment-be-damned approach, Irish Pages nevertheless roots itself in tradition. "It’s got such strong historical vision," says Daniel Tobin, Irish Pages advisory board member and chair of the Department of Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson, "not just for the region of Northern Ireland, but for all of Western civilization." Tobin calls Irish Pages "necessary and needed" in a time when "most publications have no grounding in a historical framework nor vision that gives what they’re saying any gravity."
The cover itself gives a nod and wink to tradition. It features an image of the horse from the old 20-pence piece. "It’s a little literary allusion," reveals Agee. Yeats himself, you see, designed the old coinage. "Some people," says Agee, "will get that."
The launch of Irish Pages takes place this Monday (June 23) at 6:30 p.m. at the Emerson Room, 80 Boylston Street, Boston. It’s free; call (617) 824-8228.
SICPP at NEC
The annual New England Conservatory Summer Institute for Piano Performance (June 23-28) offers an "intensive performance seminar on music of the twentieth century for pianists of all levels." The program includes master classes in which participants are coached by artistic director Stephen Drury and members of the SICPP faculty on a broad range of repertoire from the last 100 years and also receive private lessons. What will be of interest to most civilians, however, are the six evenings of free public concerts featuring Drury, other members of the faculty, and works by, among others, SICPP composer-in-residence Lee Hyla.
The program will include, Monday, June 23, Stephen Drury performing Charles Ives’s Sonata No. 2 (the "Concord") and Lee Hyla’s Basic Training; Tuesday, June 24, Haydee Schvartz performing John Cage’s Four Walls; Wednesday, June 25, Drury, Judith Gordon, Rachel Jimenez, Yukiko Takagi, and the Callithumpian Consort performing Lee Hyla’s Third Party, Riff and Transfiguration, and Amnesia Variance, and Paul Elwood’s Albrecht Dürer 1: St. Jerome in His Study; Thursday, June 26, Emanuele Arciuli performing a Thelonious Monk program; Friday, June 27, Takagi, Robert Schulz, and the Callithumpian Consort performing Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kontakte and Lee Hyla’s Cia, Manhattan. The Saturday, June 28 concert will feature performances by the students of the 2003 Summer Institute. The concerts are all at NEC’s Williams Hall, 290 Huntington Avenue, at 8 p.m. For more information, call the NEC School for Continuing Education at (617) 585-1126.
Comedy at the Regattabar
We’re used to jazz and cabaret at the Charles Hotel’s Regattabar, but this summer the room will feature comedy on alternating Tuesday evenings. On June 24, the Underdog Comedy Tour, which features "the new stars of the New York comedy scene," comes in with stand-up veteran Demitri Martin, Saturday Night Live writer Leo Allen, and former Boston comic Eugene Mirman, who’s lately been hitting the network TV slots on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and a regular spot in the Cartoon Network’s Home Movies. The show will feature stand-up as well as sketches.
On July 8, Gary Gulman (another former Bostonian who is making the network TV rounds, including Leno, Letterman, Craig Kilborn, and Carson Daly) performs with Christian Finnigan and Kelly McFarland. Also on the schedule are local favorite DJ Hazard (July 22), rising Boston comedy scene star the Reverend Tim McIntire (August 5), and Cartoon Network Home Movies star (and Berklee College of Music grad) Brendan Small with his longtime sketch partner Larry Murphy and comedian Patrick Borelli (August 18). The Regattabar is in the Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett Street, in Harvard Square. All shows start at 8. Call (866) 468-7619.
