Charles Mee Takes on Cornell in Enigmatic Drama

In his recent play Hotel Cassiopeia, which was performed last week through Sunday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Charles Mee probes into the life and work of the modern artist Joseph Cornell. With his eye for visual fantasy and his delightful sense of verbal whimsy, Mee renders a kaleidoscopic depiction of Cornell and the imaginative boxes he assembles.

Hardly a precise portrait of the artist, the play adapts the elliptical style of Cornell’s art and suggests rather than delineates the motives and desires driving his work. Characteristic of Mee’s plays, Hotel Cassiopeia departs from psychological and dramatic realism and embraces an un-structured form full of free-association and suggestive of Cornell’s own streams of consciousness.

An introvert, if not an enigma, Cornell led an unusual and quiet life in Queens, where he lived with his mother and paralyzed brother. Drawing inspiration from both Cornell’s diaries and art, Mee skillfully weaves these threads and creates a play dense with subtle insight into the intimate goings-on of Cornell’s mind. Shadowy illuminations of celestial constellations tattoo the floor and backdrop of the stage and recall the interiors of Cornell’s famous boxes. The copper globe and leafless skeleton of a tree further evoke a sense of penetration into both Cornell and his work.

The lines spoken by the play’s characters intimate not Cornell’s own words, but the words that his art would speak if only it could. Cornell (played by the endearing Barney O’Hanlon) dreamily ponders life through fragmented monologues that transmit the artist’s heightened senses of awareness and observation. The rest of the characters who inhabit Cornell’s inner universe also banter away in wandering and absurd dialogue. Mee scatters glimmers of coherency and truth in the whirlwind of his script, but at times he pushes the boundaries of the form too far and leaves the audience grasping at specters of unintelligible significance.

Nonetheless, when Mee’s style realizes his effort to evoke an impressionistic image of Cornell, the effect is intense. Most wonderful of all are the times Mee manages to express subtly a palpable sense of the compassion and loneliness that followed Cornell through his life. Throughout the play, Cornell tenderly recollects his frequent explorations around his neighborhood, and at times his more courageous treks to Manhattan. During these outings, the artist often discovered the magical stuff, the odds and ends, the forgotten treasures and the overlooked gems with which he would furnish the idyllic interiors of his boxes. These boxes became sacred cabinets and impenetrable tabernacles of wonder and beauty. Frequent montages of Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart movies on the starry backdrop illustrate Cornell’s infatuation with both physical and natural beauty. Awestruck by the splendor of the everyday, Cornell seems paralyzed by his overwhelming sentiments and unable to express them in any way other than his art.

The striking images that enliven the atmosphere of Hotel Cassiopeia often compensate for the rambling and incoherence of the dialogue. In an illuminating monologue, Cornell relates all the observations he gathered in a single moment on a city excursion. Full of hope and excitement, he lists the glances and exchanges between the people he observed, the caught smiles and snippets of laughter that filled the “almost sunny moment.” The subtle poignancy of this monologue gives new meaning to his artistic creations and tinges them with an almost painful nostalgia, as if they are distillations of bygone moments, mementos of a particular feeling, or souvenirs of a beautiful day long past.

The eloquence of this monologue departs from the insecurities and questions that more frequently characterize Cornell’s conscience. Time and again, Cornell wrestles with his artistic motivation and purpose as he idles away his time in the “basement studio” of his mother’s home. He cries out to no one but himself, asking “Is everything I do written on Water? But what can I do?” The question rattles the audience and silence looms heavily in the air, broken eventually by the sound of a thundering train. The high cry of the train’s continuous whistle pierces through the sound of the rumbling engine and haunts the audience with its shriek. It is only a noise. No train passes. Yet the sense of Cornell’s loneliness and frustration is everywhere.

After this, the play takes on new energy. Arranging actors and objects around the stage, Cornell moves with sudden focus and purpose. It is as if he has had a spark of inspiration. He works quickly to render this creation before the image flees from him. The last word of the play is “Yes.” It is Cornell’s resolute affirmation to the questions that he has posed throughout the play. It is an assertion on the part of the playwright that the small voyages he has made to discover simple beauty are the things that fill his life with direction and meaning.