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.
Read more about the show in Professor Joshua Williams’ Indefinite Article. And pick up a copy of DeLillo’s book for the NYU Skirball Book Club!
