Start weaving the threads of interpretation: What were some of the expressive elements used in constructing the performance? How were they used? How were they juxtaposed and combined? What mood(s) was the piece trying to evoke? What role Charles Mee’s text played here? What role the music/ film clippings, etc. played? Note how the performance presents some facts of Joseph Cornell’s life but aims especially at evoking his art. Which aspects did you find especially effective or richly suggestive? Or where did you get lost/ disconnected?
Write short comments, pose questions, answer questions posed by others, return to your own earlier observations, etc. - each and every contribution counts in this collective endeavor. Enjoy.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Ruby // Oct 11, 2007 at 12:37 am
I wrote an entry before I realized we have to make SHORT comments and not long entries. Anyhow…
I want to focus on the aspect of the usage of the box. So, here is the first paragraph of my entry.
Boxes, drawers and frames were used and appeared recurrently on stage. The background has never gone outside of the box; everything that happened has always remained inside the box. It might imply that, within the box, are the most memorable, most exquisite moments of Joseph Cornell’s life, and the fact that we, audience, are watching his eccentric inner world through a spy glass. It did seem as if things were juxtaposed, placed side by side, without a specific pattern or sequence.
2 Samema // Oct 11, 2007 at 12:55 am
I’m actually the first one to get home because I live like 10 minutes away from BAM! And as a result I am the first one to comment and that usually does not happen so I think that I will cherish this opportunity.
Well to the heart and soul of this play. I was a bit surprised by the ending of this play. I thought I heard in class that the play was 2 1/2 hrs long, so I expected the play to end around 10. And thus I thought the plot would resolve around 10. But the performance ended abruptly because I excepted an intermission not the finale.
The expressive elements that were used to construct the performance were based on the set design. The background consisted of the galaxy and stars. I thought that it gave the audience a dreamy tone and set the mood for the entire play. The stars in the back also helped to foreshadow the beginnings of Joseph Cornell’s glorious artistic career. In order to understand this play, the audience would have to do prior research on the characters and the directors. While looking at the pictures on the blackboard today in class I noticed that the artist was in a way obsessed with the planets and astronomy in general. And this play helped to bring his art work to life and give the audience a view of inside the mind of a genius.
I knew that the film clips were familiar. And after the performance someone pointed out that it was clips from Casablanca, and everyone knows that that movie is the greatest love movie of all time. And the movie was about choices and the discovery of oneself through the journey of life. I think that is what the director Charles Mee was trying to portray through this play. The journey of a man’s life to discover himself. And the movie clips were interesting because when Joseph paralleled the words to the movie with the characters it symbolized that he was also going through a similar experience. So this helped to clarify the title of the play. The “Hotel” part meant that it was a transition in the characters life because no one stays in a hotel for too long and helps them to connect two parts of their lives together.
I think that I get the overall meaning of the play but there are some things about the individual characters that I do not understand. The ballerina was pretty clear (agility and elegance). And so was the brother Robert. But I was most confused about the character that wore all white. Was he the pharmacist or the astronomer? The plump guy was the Herbalist and that was pretty clear.
And this time I won’t use my caution words. At first I did not like how that play ended and that was largely due to my confusion but now as I write this comment or interpretation I understand the reason and the logic behind this seemingly chaotic play. I think that I like it more now that I have thought about it throughly. The only negative thing that I have to say about this is that the only way a audience can understand the plot fully is if they do research before the actual event.
3 Stephen // Oct 11, 2007 at 1:31 am
Wow, I’m actually up mad late. First i’d like to agree with Barbara in saying that the intro line “I like donuts” or something like that was brilliant. It was so simple but yet it just blew my mind away. Brilliant
As for the play itself - i got the sense that the main character (Cornell) had some sort of developmental disorder, where he was an adult but trapped in the mind of a child. But that actually helped him with his artistic capabilites - he saw beauty in even the simplest things like birds. Everything fascinated him. I thought the whole play was basically exploring his brain, his mind, his logic of sorts. Since the brain is complex, random and sometimes blurs a lot of things together, we were so confused at the complexity of the scenes. There was just so much going on. In addition, the box on the wall and the floor was kind of “collage-y”. When they tried to show images or movie clips on the wall, we knew what was happening, but the movie itself was not the same as being shown on a blank screen. It was hard to see certain parts of the screen because of the background. This sort of furthers the sense of the blurring of ideas and memories in the brain.
At the same time, Cornell has such a vivid image of the things he finds beautiful - he remembers all the people, the birds, bicycle etc. that he sees. Juxtapose the blurring of the Casanova movie clips with the detailed people and objects and you essentially in the mind of this complex artist.
The people played multiple parts, which confused me at some points. The mother/passerby was not confusing, but the three men who played all different parts really confused me. I had no idea who they represented or why they were there. At some points, i thought perhaps they were the voice of logic or reason or maybe just his creativity at work.
The music really fit well into this play. It was kind of mellow, light, soft, and calm. Sort of the environment for exploration and creativity to occur. The music had a sense of curiosity which mirrored the artists delight at everything he sees. This wasn’t the type of play where you got rock music because it just didn’t fit.
Lastly, the props. I noticed they used the same props over and over again. I really didn’t understand the significance of any of the props. The tree, the ballerina thing, and the ladder. The ladder I kind of saw as maybe the window of more possibilities, more adventures. The chair was also used alot and the tea as well. I saw the tea as simple creativity as well. At one point, he mentioned only have 1 teabag and so they came up with an innovative way for both of them to get tea but it was also very simple.
Lastly, I’d just like to comment about Junior’s cheesecake. It is like 7/8 heaven and 1/8 “heart-attack-in-a-box”. But if you haven’t tried it, your missing out. And this is coming from some who is lactose intolerant. I’m gonna regret this tommorow, but heck it was worth it.
Goodbye and Goodnight……f
4 dengelman // Oct 12, 2007 at 10:39 am
As I was sitting in the theater watching the play, I was getting really worried, because I thought that I was probably the only idiot in the class who just wasn’t “getting it”. You don’t know how relieved I was when I found out that most other people felt the same way. While I think I got the jist of the play (crazy artist with his crazy delusions), I was really lost for most of the performance. I was never sure which characters were real or imaginary. Ok, the ballerina was obviously in his head, I guess she represented girls that he obsessed about, except in his imagination she seemed kind of crazy herself, so I guess they’d make a good couple. But what about the men in the coffee shop? Who were they and what purpose did they serve? I just didn’t understand it.
The set was interesting, though I also couldn’t really make any sense out of it. I think that the entire set was supposed to be like one of the boxes that Cornell makes, but I didn’t understand the purpose of each specific set piece, like the tree and the latter. The part where all the set pieces “float” was probably to represent some kind of chaos in Cornell’s life. I think that the whole play was purposely meant to confuse the audience, as it was really an exploration of an unstable man’s mind, so it is of course going to be chaotic. It was diffiult to distinguish the real from the imaginary, and I think that is exactly what the directors wanted, so that we can enter Cornell’s mind for an evening, and see things from his “blurry” perspective.
One thing that I really liked and enjoyed (eventhough I didn’t understand what was happening while it was going on) was the play’s use of sound and music. I can’t really explain the scene, so I’m not sure if you will know what I’m referring to, but towards the end there was some kind of “montage” with music that I though was incredible and really loved watching. The music at times during the play would kind of trail of to this haunting lulll, which I also really liked. I think my favorite part of the whole play was when Cornell is screaming out his brother’s name as you hear the train getting louder and louder. (First off, what exactly happened in that scene? Did his brother get hit by a train or something?–I couldn’t really make out the images being projected at that time either….). I actually got that tingling sensation during that scene, so it obviously was really effective.
Needless to say, I am still very confused as to what I saw. This has definitely been my “weirdest” outing so far–but I guess that’s part of art, right?
5 jettikkalayil // Oct 14, 2007 at 10:06 pm
My expectations were blown away by the reality of this performance, or shall I say unreality. Before we went to watch this performance as a class, I did not know that we were going to watch a show on Joseph Cornell (the funny thing is we did an exercise on interpreting his work that week…lol). No wonder I was asking myself all throughout the play, “What is this?” I can’t believe I didn’t get it until the very end when someone mention Joseph Cornell’s name. Then I realized the whole stage was a portrayal of a box of one of Joseph Cornell’s artworks. Everything started to make sense when you say it like that. Then I realized that much of the play wasn’t reality, but a fabrication of Joseph Cornell’s mind. The only hard part is to find out what was the reality and what was imaginary.
There was the use of the projector to show an old black and white movie. This was an interesting addition to the whole theatrical part of the play. Unlike other performances, this is one of the one of the first performances that incorporated all forms of arts (i.e. dance, music, song, film, and pure acting). Probably the director of this performance wanted to express that art had many forms and is not limited to one particular medium.
The whole theatrical production, to me, was very random. I really didn’t get parts of scenes. Like I stated before, it was very difficult to decipher what was real and what was a fabrication of the mind (imagination). Probably the whole play was a representation of Joseph Cornell’s mind. In that case, he must have been and very eccentric (crazy) man. But one of his photos that really caught my eye during the interpretation exercise was the one I like to call “God’s Chemistry Set.” It was a box that contained items that represented the universe, and had stark explanations for the idea of how God created the universe. It was pure genius. I looked at that and my mind automatically registered its meaning. Joseph Cornell represented the invisible force that keeps the planet afloat in space with clear wine glass. This and many other representations tell me the true brilliance of Joseph Cornell. I wonder how crazy (eccentric and smart) this Joseph Cornell character really was.
6 eleung // Oct 14, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Oh wow, that’s a great reason for the title. At least, for the “Hotel” part.
7 wschaefer // Oct 15, 2007 at 1:43 am
sorry i’m late (architecture studio please)
i think i was the only one who really enjoyed the play. i think i kind of understood what was happening, though i was a little lost at some parts, but that was ok.
for me i usually find the sounds most memorable, and so much about this production appealed to me. it was strange to hear the train horn so frequently throughout, as it’s always been one of my favourite sounds. that mixed together with the insect sounds and star imagery reminded me strongly of rural virginia, where i have some family, and is one of my favourite places to be.
in a weird way i kind of related to joseph, whose art i really enjoy. just from the assemblages we saw in class, i could see he admired old things, and collected them in a childlike way, storing them in drawers, they were like objects i’d find in my attic. this appealed to me as i find myself fascinated by seemingly ordinary things all the time, but i tend to photograph them rather than collect and arrange them.
i also connected when it showed how well he knew certain films and could recite the scripts in entirety, just as i know some films or songs so well to a point of obsession.
the way he was sort of alienated from other people because of his circumstances made him likable in a weird way. i actually feel a bit like that myself sometimes and prefer to distance myself from others to look at stars or other random things.
it was actually almost unpleasant to have so many things that felt personal to me portrayed to such a large audience, so i was in a way relieved when not many other people seemed to understand.
overall i really did enjoy the play and am very grateful to have gone, as i am sure i never would have investigated without professor drabik’s intervention, and it really made me think, as well as discover a new artist i really am interested in.
8 wschaefer // Oct 15, 2007 at 1:45 am
oh and a lot of it i seemed to really enjoy and understand in a way that i really can’t describe on here or through talking, which is usually when i know i really liked something
9 mperez // Oct 15, 2007 at 7:44 am
i apologize for my lateness (architecture) but i still remember what i wanted to say. better late than never right ?
At first Hotel Cassiopeia confused me. I didn’t really have much expectations except that we were going to watch a play on an artist whose works we had seen in class. The whole beginning seemed very much as a kind of dream sequence for me, and then they used the sudden hit of light exposure to “wake up” the character and us as well.
During most of the beginning I was very confused. Characters seemed to come out arbitrarily speaking of nonsense. There seemed to be no coherent conversation. The switches back to reality in the play gave me the hint that something else was going on here and I started to think that those arbitrary scenes were part of Cornell’s subconcious. Then, I found that it could relate to myself nd all of us actually. All of us have different thoughts in the day, going on at the same time throughout our minds. Our mind just wanders off into some of the most mundne and random fields of thought. The reason it was so weird and confusing at first in the beginning was because we’re not used to hearing our thoughts spoken aloud all the time. I wasn’t expecting this play to hold that kind of vernacular.
I was very glad that Prof. Drabik showed us his work before hand. Again, what seemed so arbitrary and pointless at times meant a whole other thing to Cornell, who was surpressed by his mother and burdened by his brother. Making the connections between the items he said in the play and the works really brought it all together for me.
The way the actors worked the stage was very impressive for me. When they reached into his subconcious everything was moving pretty fast and usually someone was moving who wasn’t even the focus of the scene. Back and forth they’d go with their props and their words, just like how we think.
I also like the lifting of the objects and the use of the frame, especially when it lifted according to one of the women’s position, focusing on perhaps his desire for her and at the same time, the division between them two.
And I cannot forget to mention BAM itself. I liked the feeling of it because it was not the fanciest thing on this earth. It gave it a more true to its core feeling. It was elegant in its own broken down way I guess.
Although it was difficult to get through in the beginning, making the connections and seeing something different from what I was used to was definitely a gret experience for me.
10 wpan // Oct 15, 2007 at 8:34 pm
there are too much symbolism in the Hotel Cassiopeia. i can only interpret some of the meanings of the performance.
there is one part that i took special interest is the sound of the train. at first i thought the sound came from somewhere outside the theatre. it was only we heard the deafening sound of the train passing through that i realize it was a part of the show.
i have a wild guess that maybe Joseph’s brother Robert is related to the train, possibly killed by it. because right before that scene Joseph was reading something about his brother that sounds like a eulogy to me. and after the scene the actors put the frame on the floor and look down at it just like the family look at the casket of the deceased in a funeral.
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