A person sits on the edge of a large black circular opening in a white wall, with smoke or mist inside the circle behind them.

Prep School: White Noise

Daniel Fish’s ambitious string of classics-tackling continues with White Noise – following, of course, his Tony-winning revival of Oklahoma!

For his loosely-inspired staging of DeLillo’s White Noise, he takes DeLillo’s interspersed lists as a starting point. Here’s the first paragraph of the book:

The station wagons arrived at noon, a long shining line that coursed through the west campus. In single file they eased around the orange I-beam sculpture and moved toward the dormitories. The roofs of the station wagons were loaded down with carefully secured suitcases full of light and heavy clothing; with boxes of blankets, boots and shoes, stationary and books, sheets, pillows, quilts; with rolled-up rugs and sleeping bags; with bicycles, skis, rucksacks, English and Western saddles, inflated rafts. As cars slowed to a crawl and stopped, students sprang out and raced to the rear doors to begin removing the objects inside; the stereo sets, radios, personal computers; small refrigerators and table ranges; the cartons of phonograph records and cassettes; the hairdryers and styling irons; the tennis rackets, soccer balls, hockey and lacrosse sticks, bows and arrows; the controlled substances, the birth control pills and devices; the junk food still in shopping bags –  onion-and-garlic chips, nacho thins, peanut creme patties, Waffles and Kabooms, fruit chews and toffee popcorn; the Dum-Dum pops, the Mystic mints.

RELATED EVENTS
A silhouette of a person sits in front of a large, bright circular light with swirling white smoke above against a dark background.
  • Sun Sep 22, 2019

Daniel Fish: White Noise Freely inspired by the novel by Don DeLillo

  • Theater
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indefinite article

Joshua Williams on White Noise

For me, it wasn’t until “Pore Jud is Daid” that Daniel Fish’s Broadway revival of Oklahoma! proved it was exactly as revelatory as everyone said it was. The scene begins in a blackout that seems to go on and on as our anxiety mounts – and then suddenly the upstage wall of the set is illuminated in austere grayscale. It’s a live video of Patrick Vaill (playing a tormented Jud Fry) in extreme close-up as Damon Daunno’s Curly McLain sings inches from his face, goading him into hanging himself. As the camera moves around the two men, the scenic backdrop painted on the upstage wall – fields, two lonely houses, open sky – swims across Vaill’s face. The landscape darkens; there’s weather. Jud’s pain comes sweepin’ down the plain.

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A person stands in front of a dark circle on stage, with performers in matching outfits lying in a circular pattern and their reflections visible on the shiny floor.

GET INTO IT

An excerpt of “White Noise”

GET THEE TO THE LIBRARY

Recommended readings to accompany the Indefinite Article by Joshua Williams.

  • Dennis Cutchins, Katja Krebs, Eckart Voigts (eds), The Routledge Companion to Adaptation. Routledge, 2018.
  • Katherine Da Cunha Lewin and Kiron Ward (eds), Don DeLillo: Contemporary Critical Perspectives. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. 
  • Don DeLillo, White Noise. Penguin Orange Collection, 2016.

    John N. Duvall, The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo. Cambridge University Press, 2008.
  • Patrice Pavis, Contemporary Mise en Scène: Staging Theatre Today. Routledge, 2013.

OFFICE HOURS

Dec 10, 2019: Daniel Fish and Patrick Deer talk “White Noise Freely Inspired by the Novel by Don DeLillo”

White Noise: The Novel

DeLillo’s National Book Award-winner is a contender for that hefty title, Great American Novel. His depiction of America is not a flattering one, that grows more relevant as it ages.

For another still-too-relevant contender for both Great American Novel and G.O.A.T, pick up Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998), available with gorgeous new covers and an introduction from Gloria Steinem.

White Noise: The NOISE

Michele Debczak: Why Is White Noise ‘White’?

Just like the visual noise that disrupts an otherwise clear image, noise in audio engineering is used to describe anything interfering with the intended sound.

Mental Floss | Mar 1, 2016(opens in a new tab)

Meghan Neal: The Many Colors of Sound

Technically, the whirl of a fan or hum of the AC isn’t white noise at all. Many of the sounds we associate with white noise are actually pink noise, or brown, or green, or blue.

The Atlantic | Feb 16, 2016(opens in a new tab)

WhiteNESS STUDIES

Trace the rise of “whiteness studies” in the past 25 years, through this series of articles from the Chronicle of Higher Ed. (These are often contentious op-ed pieces, so explore for the full context!)

The Debate on Race, Class, Gender in American Studies

“For some of us, the conference raised the question: How much is American studies still white studies?” said Ronald Takaki, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of California at Berkeley.

Nov 25, 1992(opens in a new tab)

New Field of “Whiteness Studies” Challenges a Racial “Norm”

Mention race and racism to many white people, and they will say those issues have nothing to do with them… This is the kind of thinking that intrigues a group of scholars who are working in a new and growing field, the study of “whiteness.”

Sep 8, 1995(opens in a new tab)

“Whiteness” Scholars to Meet at Major Conference at Berkeley

According to its organizers,”The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness” is the first national conference to bring together scholars from several disciplines to discuss the topic.

Apr 4, 1997(opens in a new tab)

Bridging the Gap with ‘Whiteness Studies’

“Whiteness studies,” a much-discussed new branch of ethnic studies, may help bridge the gap between the cultural left’s focus on identity and the traditional left’s emphasis on economic justice, writes Homi K. Bhabha.

June 5, 1998(opens in a new tab)

Students Identified as Being of ‘Unknown’ Race Tend to Be White, Study Finds

According to the report’s authors, their findings suggest that colleges are admitting fewer minority students than previously thought.

Jan 13, 2006(opens in a new tab)

Whiteness and Its Complications

Thandeka’s insistence on naming whiteness counters what scholars have called the “invisibility” of the… race’s political and cultural presence.

July 14, 2006(opens in a new tab)

Who Gets to Define Ethnic Studies?

Perhaps we should also ask one question not anticipated by the news media, political pundits, or Arizona legislators: Is white studies in violation of HB 2281?

July 4, 2010(opens in a new tab)

Should We Study White People?

How often have I had to tell white students that they must discuss race in their papers only to have them respond “but there is no race. Everyone I’m studying is white.”

Feb 6, 2012(opens in a new tab)

What Now? Scholars respond to Trump

But what would later become the alt-right argued for a different sort of white studies on campus — one that celebrated European-based, predominantly Anglo-Saxon culture.

Nov 16, 2016(opens in a new tab)

The Most Photographed Barn in America


All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides – pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book.

“No one sees the barn,” he said finally… “We’re not here to capture an image, we’re here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies.”…
Another silence ensued.

“They are taking pictures of taking pictures,” he said.

– Don DeLillo, White Noise

EXTRA CREDIT

The protagonist of DeLillo’s White Noise is a professor of Hitler studies, which may have been something of a joke at the time it was written, but which also speaks to the deeply rooted white supremacist foundations of America that have been hiding in plain sight.


Let’s take this opportunity to spend some time thinking about Anne Frank and her legacy instead. This 1997 article in the New Yorker gives an impassioned argument not only for the importance of Frank’s writing, but the many ways we have failed her in the years following her death.

The New Yorker | Sept 28, 2007(opens in a new tab)
A black-and-white portrait of Anne Frank with handwritten Dutch text and her signature, dated 10 Oct. 1942. An English translation appears at the bottom, referencing a wish to look this way for Hollywood.