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Valparaiso - Acting Edition by Don DeLillo
A man sets out on an ordinary business trip to Valparaiso, Indiana. It turns out to be a mock-heroic journey toward identity and transcendence.
This is Don DeLillo's second play, and it is funny, sharp, and deep-reaching. Its characters tend to have needs and desires shaped by the forces of broadcast technology.
This is the way we talk to each other today. This is the way we tell each other things, in public, before listening millions, that we don't dare to say privately.
Nothing is allowed to be unseen. Nothing remains unsaid. And everything melts repeatedly into something else, as if driven by the finger on the TV remote.
This is also a play that makes obsessive poetry out of the language of routine airline announcements and the flow of endless information.
Valparaiso has been performed by the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago.
This is Don DeLillo's second play, and it is funny, sharp, and deep-reaching. Its characters tend to have needs and desires shaped by the forces of broadcast technology.
This is the way we talk to each other today. This is the way we tell each other things, in public, before listening millions, that we don't dare to say privately.
Nothing is allowed to be unseen. Nothing remains unsaid. And everything melts repeatedly into something else, as if driven by the finger on the TV remote.
This is also a play that makes obsessive poetry out of the language of routine airline announcements and the flow of endless information.
Valparaiso has been performed by the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago.
Paperback
First published February 1, 1999
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About the author
Don DeLillo
107 books6,496 followersDonald Richard DeLillo is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, the complexities of language, art, the advent of the Digital Age, mathematics, politics, economics, and sports.
DeLillo was already a well-regarded cult writer in 1985, when the publication of White Noise brought him widespread recognition and the National Book Award for fiction. He followed this in 1988 with Libra, a novel about the Kennedy assassination. DeLillo won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II, about terrorism and the media's scrutiny of writers' private lives, and the William Dean Howells Medal for Underworld, a historical novel that ranges in time from the dawn of the Cold War to the birth of the Internet. He was awarded the 1999 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2010, and the 2013 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
DeLillo has described his themes as "living in dangerous times" and "the inner life of the culture." In a 2005 interview, he said that writers "must oppose systems. It's important to write against power, corporations, the state, and the whole system of consumption and of debilitating entertainments... I think writers, by nature, must oppose things, oppose whatever power tries to impose on us."
DeLillo was already a well-regarded cult writer in 1985, when the publication of White Noise brought him widespread recognition and the National Book Award for fiction. He followed this in 1988 with Libra, a novel about the Kennedy assassination. DeLillo won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II, about terrorism and the media's scrutiny of writers' private lives, and the William Dean Howells Medal for Underworld, a historical novel that ranges in time from the dawn of the Cold War to the birth of the Internet. He was awarded the 1999 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2010, and the 2013 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
DeLillo has described his themes as "living in dangerous times" and "the inner life of the culture." In a 2005 interview, he said that writers "must oppose systems. It's important to write against power, corporations, the state, and the whole system of consumption and of debilitating entertainments... I think writers, by nature, must oppose things, oppose whatever power tries to impose on us."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
February 7, 2012
I started reading this while listening to the soundtrack to Synecdoche, New York, a film that is centered around a theater director/playwright named Caden Cotard, and as such incorporates his work into the narrative (and features it in a prominent and mind-fuck meta-narrative fashion in the latter half of the film). I felt like there was some kinship between DeLillo's strange play and something this fictional playwright, cooked up in the mind of Charlie Kaufman, would have involved himself with.
The similarities are rather superficial and mainly consist of a general strangeness at moments and a dialogue that, for the most part, is thoroughly unrealistic, though purposely so. DeLillo is well-known for writing in a manner that comes off as cramming the personal musing of nonfiction essays into the the format of a literary novel. Characters appearing more as the chess pieces rather than the players. Et cetera. I have no problem with this approach myself. To me it's just another medium on the rack of media, styles, formats, fonts, colors, tricks, gags, time-weathered techniques, and so on. Just another messenger that I won't shoot on sight, rather, I'll wait to hear what message they bring and then decide.
So, here I find DeLillo ultimately pulls off something interesting. This play has elements of Beckett almost too obvious to mention. It deftly wields that holy trinity of absurdity, hilariousness and seriousness. It keeps a sense tingling within that DeLillo's up to something Bigger than you realize. Leads you along, has you playing detective out of the corner of your eye. Keeps you doubting, buying it, doubting, buying it. Vague and silly one moment, a big serious slap in the face the next.
Oh, the play's mostly about this guy who ends up flying around the world by accident while simply trying to get to Valparaiso, Indiana from Chicago. An event which becomes the centerpiece for what mostly feels like DeLillo's meditations on the Information Age, celebrity culture, how these things shape a sense of self, etc, meditations which are mostly something worth beholding.
There's a Greek Chorus in the role of "television commercials" which are recited in the form of poetic rhyming couplets. E.g.:
"Cappuccino in a foaming cup
Anonymous sex with the armrests up
That's your overnight flight on Air Reliance"
or
"A video screen attached to your seat
Another pacifying baby treat
That's platinum class on Air Reliance"
I think that the motif of the exercise bike symbolizes the quasi-paradoxical sense of having traveled far but having not traveled at all. And this naturally segues into some vague ideas about televisual culture.
There's another televisual notion that crops up which is that life is only verifiable if it's on camera. Clearly a comment of sorts on the mass delusions/promulgations of an almost axiomatic connection between fame and self-worth. For the more philosophically inclined, it can get one's engines humming about a variety of epistemic quandaries...
DeLillo certainly gives one some breathing room to figure some of this out on their own without being led by the hand to and/or bludgeoned over the head by a list of opinions chiseled into stone. But every so often he'll throw down a blunt exclamation like "What's more dramatic than the struggle to become a man or woman in the world? What's more rife with danger and pain?" and then he'll high-tail it right back to letting you play detective, while still poking your brain, tickling your belly and tugging your heartstrings from backstage.
The similarities are rather superficial and mainly consist of a general strangeness at moments and a dialogue that, for the most part, is thoroughly unrealistic, though purposely so. DeLillo is well-known for writing in a manner that comes off as cramming the personal musing of nonfiction essays into the the format of a literary novel. Characters appearing more as the chess pieces rather than the players. Et cetera. I have no problem with this approach myself. To me it's just another medium on the rack of media, styles, formats, fonts, colors, tricks, gags, time-weathered techniques, and so on. Just another messenger that I won't shoot on sight, rather, I'll wait to hear what message they bring and then decide.
So, here I find DeLillo ultimately pulls off something interesting. This play has elements of Beckett almost too obvious to mention. It deftly wields that holy trinity of absurdity, hilariousness and seriousness. It keeps a sense tingling within that DeLillo's up to something Bigger than you realize. Leads you along, has you playing detective out of the corner of your eye. Keeps you doubting, buying it, doubting, buying it. Vague and silly one moment, a big serious slap in the face the next.
Oh, the play's mostly about this guy who ends up flying around the world by accident while simply trying to get to Valparaiso, Indiana from Chicago. An event which becomes the centerpiece for what mostly feels like DeLillo's meditations on the Information Age, celebrity culture, how these things shape a sense of self, etc, meditations which are mostly something worth beholding.
There's a Greek Chorus in the role of "television commercials" which are recited in the form of poetic rhyming couplets. E.g.:
"Cappuccino in a foaming cup
Anonymous sex with the armrests up
That's your overnight flight on Air Reliance"
or
"A video screen attached to your seat
Another pacifying baby treat
That's platinum class on Air Reliance"
I think that the motif of the exercise bike symbolizes the quasi-paradoxical sense of having traveled far but having not traveled at all. And this naturally segues into some vague ideas about televisual culture.
There's another televisual notion that crops up which is that life is only verifiable if it's on camera. Clearly a comment of sorts on the mass delusions/promulgations of an almost axiomatic connection between fame and self-worth. For the more philosophically inclined, it can get one's engines humming about a variety of epistemic quandaries...
DeLillo certainly gives one some breathing room to figure some of this out on their own without being led by the hand to and/or bludgeoned over the head by a list of opinions chiseled into stone. But every so often he'll throw down a blunt exclamation like "What's more dramatic than the struggle to become a man or woman in the world? What's more rife with danger and pain?" and then he'll high-tail it right back to letting you play detective, while still poking your brain, tickling your belly and tugging your heartstrings from backstage.
May 25, 2023
the eerie fluorescence that suggests the hyperreality of a filmed TV commercial potentially viewable in a thousand cities, at twenty-second intervals, day and night, for an indefinite period of time.
DeLillo manages masterful estrangement in a Who's Afraid of White Noise, a pitch perfect satire of air traffic just before the Righteous attacked Manhattan circa 2001. Michael is scheduled to go to Valparaiso, Indiana and winds up instead in Valparaiso, Chile. It is a hilarious story and becomes a media sensation. He’s interviewed dozens of times. Both Michael and his wife sustain truly dark subplots which artfully surface, even with the edges smoothed by Oprah. The use of a chorus lends the ghostly to an expected conclusion.
DeLillo manages masterful estrangement in a Who's Afraid of White Noise, a pitch perfect satire of air traffic just before the Righteous attacked Manhattan circa 2001. Michael is scheduled to go to Valparaiso, Indiana and winds up instead in Valparaiso, Chile. It is a hilarious story and becomes a media sensation. He’s interviewed dozens of times. Both Michael and his wife sustain truly dark subplots which artfully surface, even with the edges smoothed by Oprah. The use of a chorus lends the ghostly to an expected conclusion.
December 31, 2020
"You are here to unfurl your crime across the satellite skies."
Don DeLillo, Valparaiso
A small two-act play that examines our media culture, exhibitionism, and banality. It feels like we've entered a reality show that never seems to reach its destination. There are parts of this that seem brilliant and parts, unfortunately, that fall a bit flat. I'm a big DeLillo fan and particularly love his fiction. His plays, play I guess, just not as hard. Like one chord, strummed over and over.
One of my best friends saw this when it opened in Cambridge back in 1999. It would be interesting to see it performed, but I'm not sure if seeing it live would make it better. Perhaps, but only because the whole play is about performance. Its power is derived from being performed.
Don DeLillo, Valparaiso
A small two-act play that examines our media culture, exhibitionism, and banality. It feels like we've entered a reality show that never seems to reach its destination. There are parts of this that seem brilliant and parts, unfortunately, that fall a bit flat. I'm a big DeLillo fan and particularly love his fiction. His plays, play I guess, just not as hard. Like one chord, strummed over and over.
One of my best friends saw this when it opened in Cambridge back in 1999. It would be interesting to see it performed, but I'm not sure if seeing it live would make it better. Perhaps, but only because the whole play is about performance. Its power is derived from being performed.
September 8, 2024
Valparaiso is my first time reading a play by Don DeLillo. It was certainly unique. I’m not sure I fully understand it.
A man wants to take a flight to Valparaiso, Indiana, but ends up in Valparaiso, Chile. The distance he travels is distorted, and difficult to follow. A woman is on a static exercise bike in her home. The distance she travels is also questioned. What is motion? Does it really exist?
The play involves a number of DeLillo’s obsessions including air travel, and TV culture. I don’t have a lot of experience reading or seeing plays, but I’d definitely like to see Valparaiso in person.
No doubt, I haven’t understood all of it, but it wasn’t difficult or frustrating in any way. Is it pretentious? Probably. Do I care? Not really.
“What is the word that describes the condition of a man who advances bravely towards his own gruelling truth?”
“Perishability”
A man wants to take a flight to Valparaiso, Indiana, but ends up in Valparaiso, Chile. The distance he travels is distorted, and difficult to follow. A woman is on a static exercise bike in her home. The distance she travels is also questioned. What is motion? Does it really exist?
The play involves a number of DeLillo’s obsessions including air travel, and TV culture. I don’t have a lot of experience reading or seeing plays, but I’d definitely like to see Valparaiso in person.
No doubt, I haven’t understood all of it, but it wasn’t difficult or frustrating in any way. Is it pretentious? Probably. Do I care? Not really.
“What is the word that describes the condition of a man who advances bravely towards his own gruelling truth?”
“Perishability”
June 1, 2016
What Media Has Made Me Become
“Valparaiso” is another deeply satirical work. It is funny, ironic and sad at the same time. In this play, DeLillo focuses on the joke that media makes of us. It follows Michael Majeski a business man who is supposed to go to Valparaiso, Indiana, but instead finds himself going to Valparaiso, Chile. This mistake, or the succession of supposedly innocent mistakes, has led him on a journey he never thought he would live. What is funny is that we do not know much about the travel itself. The scenes are formed as successions of interviews with Michael about the mistake. The issue becomes bigger and bigger, but it also loses its meaning. Interviewers no longer want to know about the mistake itself but about the man who made it, a man who becomes the object of the media which absorbs his identity and leaves him an empty shell...
“Valparaiso” is another deeply satirical work. It is funny, ironic and sad at the same time. In this play, DeLillo focuses on the joke that media makes of us. It follows Michael Majeski a business man who is supposed to go to Valparaiso, Indiana, but instead finds himself going to Valparaiso, Chile. This mistake, or the succession of supposedly innocent mistakes, has led him on a journey he never thought he would live. What is funny is that we do not know much about the travel itself. The scenes are formed as successions of interviews with Michael about the mistake. The issue becomes bigger and bigger, but it also loses its meaning. Interviewers no longer want to know about the mistake itself but about the man who made it, a man who becomes the object of the media which absorbs his identity and leaves him an empty shell...
September 21, 2016
Testing my theory about novelists normally being lousy dramatists (the McCarthy-DeLillo Axiom), I read this to see if it was an exception. It wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, there are some double-and-triple threats out there (the Samuel Beckett Exclusionary Act of 1960), but this is just horrific. An absolute diamond of what problems tend to plague later period Don: pretension, stilted dialogue, and a disconnection from human rhythms staggering in its chasmal gap. By the time the Chorus of airline personal is intoning “Please check your masks/Seats in upright position” in unison and pantomime, one begins to look around for Robert Hays and the rest of the cast of Airplane!. I love you, DeLillo, but stick with the books, fella.
March 1, 2019
3,5/5. This was a very weird play. But I like it! This is one of those books that are hard to review.... There is many level of comprehension to it, good criticism of society, humor and absurdity in a good amount and some good use of words and speech. I’m no expert in play and I don’t read much of them, no more than a dozen a year, probably a bit less (8-10), but I try to explore this genre a bit and see what kind of form it could take. I like it, won’t made it to my favorite, but it just made me appreciate a bit more of Don DeLillo that I had recently discover and that make me go from surprise to surprise An interesting author and a good enough play!
December 4, 2025
didascalico il giusto, il perfetto compendio del postmodernismo
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March 28, 2016مایکل: بسیار خب. دارم روزمو شروع می کنم. قهوه روی گازه. روزنامه روی میزه. رادیو داره وزوز می کنه، داره اخبار روز جهان رو پخش می کنه. تو این لحظه همسرم، لیویا، کجاست؟
لیویا تو اتاق نشیمن روی دوچرخه ثابتش نشسته داره ورزش لعنتیش رو انجام می ده. می تونم راهی پیدا کنم که مثل همیشه با هم صمیمی بشیم، مثلاَ یه حرف معمولی و معقول که سر صحبتو باز کنه. یه دیقه توی یه اطاق با هم ایم. هر دیقه ش خلاصه ای از کل زندگی من یا لیویاست.
یه وقتا هر دو ما احساس می کنیم زندگی مون خیلی شلوغ شده. هر لحظه از زندگی ما پر می شه از تاریخ و روانشناسی زندگی گذشته مون.
... تو زندگی زناشویی هیچ چی واقعی نیست. دلم میخواد تنها باشم؟ این فکر منو به وحشت می ندازه. اما مگه من بلدم با کس دیگه ای زندگی کنم؟...!
لیویا تو اتاق نشیمن روی دوچرخه ثابتش نشسته داره ورزش لعنتیش رو انجام می ده. می تونم راهی پیدا کنم که مثل همیشه با هم صمیمی بشیم، مثلاَ یه حرف معمولی و معقول که سر صحبتو باز کنه. یه دیقه توی یه اطاق با هم ایم. هر دیقه ش خلاصه ای از کل زندگی من یا لیویاست.
یه وقتا هر دو ما احساس می کنیم زندگی مون خیلی شلوغ شده. هر لحظه از زندگی ما پر می شه از تاریخ و روانشناسی زندگی گذشته مون.
... تو زندگی زناشویی هیچ چی واقعی نیست. دلم میخواد تنها باشم؟ این فکر منو به وحشت می ندازه. اما مگه من بلدم با کس دیگه ای زندگی کنم؟...!
November 16, 2023
PT
Uma peça magnífica, escrita com grande criatividade e originalidade. Também revela uma intenção clara e eficaz. Gostei muito. O primeiro ato foi especialmente envolvente, aguçando a curiosidade do leitor. E o desfecho do segundo ato foi extremamente bem conseguido. Muito bom.
ENG
An outstanding play, written with great creativity and originality. It also reveals a clear and effective intention. I enjoyed it a lot. The first act was particularly engaging, piquing the reader's curiosity. And the ending of the second act was extremely well-executed. Very good.
Uma peça magnífica, escrita com grande criatividade e originalidade. Também revela uma intenção clara e eficaz. Gostei muito. O primeiro ato foi especialmente envolvente, aguçando a curiosidade do leitor. E o desfecho do segundo ato foi extremamente bem conseguido. Muito bom.
ENG
An outstanding play, written with great creativity and originality. It also reveals a clear and effective intention. I enjoyed it a lot. The first act was particularly engaging, piquing the reader's curiosity. And the ending of the second act was extremely well-executed. Very good.
May 10, 2021
En esta obra de teatro, Don DeLillo toma como base una anécdota curiosa, un hombre que viajaba a Valparaíso Indianápolis llega a Valparaíso Chile debido a una serie de azarosos acontecimientos.
La obra inicia con Michael el personaje principal en medio de una extraña entrevista donde cuenta lo que aconteció, conforme va avanzando, se suceden más entrevistas y la prensa va ahondando en detalles más íntimos de la vida de Michael y su esposa, eso hace que la divertida anécdota se convierta en una acción desesperada de un hombre que no está a gusto con su vida, y que de alguna manera quiso alejarse sin proponérselo pero deseándolo, hubiera tenido más impacto la historia, si Michael se hubiera quedado en Chile, y lo hubieran buscado, investigando como puede un hombre perderse entre dos vuelos nacionales sin dejar rastro.
La obra es buena, pero a veces es repetitiva, lo increíble es que el tema no es viejo, al contrario aunque ahora no son quince minutos de fama, si pueden ser cinco segundos de ser viral en internet si también pasas por alguna experiencia inusual y atractiva para los medios de comunicación, los cuales cada vez son más voraces y desinhibidos a la hora de buscar historias que los hagan tener la exposición deseada.
Me gusto como DeLiLlo cambia varias veces el curso de la historia, haciendo que conforme avanza se vuelva un poco más dramática y oscura.
La obra inicia con Michael el personaje principal en medio de una extraña entrevista donde cuenta lo que aconteció, conforme va avanzando, se suceden más entrevistas y la prensa va ahondando en detalles más íntimos de la vida de Michael y su esposa, eso hace que la divertida anécdota se convierta en una acción desesperada de un hombre que no está a gusto con su vida, y que de alguna manera quiso alejarse sin proponérselo pero deseándolo, hubiera tenido más impacto la historia, si Michael se hubiera quedado en Chile, y lo hubieran buscado, investigando como puede un hombre perderse entre dos vuelos nacionales sin dejar rastro.
La obra es buena, pero a veces es repetitiva, lo increíble es que el tema no es viejo, al contrario aunque ahora no son quince minutos de fama, si pueden ser cinco segundos de ser viral en internet si también pasas por alguna experiencia inusual y atractiva para los medios de comunicación, los cuales cada vez son más voraces y desinhibidos a la hora de buscar historias que los hagan tener la exposición deseada.
Me gusto como DeLiLlo cambia varias veces el curso de la historia, haciendo que conforme avanza se vuelva un poco más dramática y oscura.
January 31, 2008
This is horrifyingly insightful. Since it is a play, and there is no narration, all the insightful things are said out loud by the characters. Which is part of why it's kind of horrifying, I think. Also, for the first.. about half of the play, i really couldn't figure out what exactly happened with this man (i think the author was intentionally vague), and it made the story seem cryptic and mysterious which was cool. Then when you figure out what happened, you're like "uh.. okay". But the point isn't what happened to him. It was the reaction of everyone. His desire to be interviewed/looked at. Like I said, fucking creepy. I like the (obviously sarcastic) idea that something that isn't recorded doesn't count: it's unverifiable. Overall, this was a brutally accurate comment on the weird-ass world we live in. I really badly want to see this performed live, because, if done well, I think it would be amazing.
December 14, 2016
my sparknotes™ review: mixed feelings overall. It is avant garde, and has a very dreamy mood. Theme c Definitely funny but not "HaHA-funny." TW: suicide
I think this play was generally skewed to be read rather than performed. A performance would be stationary and probably confusing. Also, right of the bat, all the quotes from random book reviews on the cover said the play was funny. I didn't realize they meant funny in a grand theatrical sense. I suppose overall the play was funny but it has its own sort of unnerving humor.
That being said, it was very interesting allegory to people (or things) that become famous for no real good reason, e.g. the Kardashians, pepe, Monica Lewinsky, essentially die inside and sell their souls to the social machine! Very applicable to today's meme culture and just social media in general.
I don't feel as though I'm overreaching or "misreading" because DeLillo's dialogue begs this intense, psychological, and critical interpretation. He demands that you internalize these characters and feel what they feel. The same way Real Housewives is so entertaining to some people.
It explores suicide from a very interesting angle as well. *double spoiler alert* The juxtaposition of Livia's pregnancy and Michael's suicide is another one of those slightly unnerving, but genuinely interesting dynamics in this book. The play refuss to acknowledge Livia (woah!! she has live in her name!!) and her clamours for attention. She declares her illegitimate baby on live TV and is pretty much dismissed. She represents those who have intentionally sold their souls to the media.
*tw suicide*
Searching "famous suicide" on google will render these lists of people who are known because they've killed themselves. Articles from Buzzfeed and trashy gossip pages, to Suicide Prevention websites. Wikipedia has a list of every person who has committed suicide and also has a wikipedia article about them. You can scroll down and read the a description of the life of anybody who was anybody who killed themselves. *still spoilers* Henry is in the public eye after his airline escapades, and everything he only deals with his suicide through the lens of a camera. He just repeats these choice phrases over and over again to deflect any inquiry. He even says "I remember dying" (in what I assume to be saying in a dramatic ironic sort of way) to deflect Delfina's inquiries. And it is here at the end that Delillo works his magic with choice quotes like "How do you tell the difference between identity and desperation?" and really chilling monologues equating martyrdom to submitting to the "soulful exposure" of the media.
That's something I can mess with honestly. Delillo talks the talk and also walks the walk.
I think this play was generally skewed to be read rather than performed. A performance would be stationary and probably confusing. Also, right of the bat, all the quotes from random book reviews on the cover said the play was funny. I didn't realize they meant funny in a grand theatrical sense. I suppose overall the play was funny but it has its own sort of unnerving humor.
That being said, it was very interesting allegory to people (or things) that become famous for no real good reason, e.g. the Kardashians, pepe, Monica Lewinsky, essentially die inside and sell their souls to the social machine! Very applicable to today's meme culture and just social media in general.
I don't feel as though I'm overreaching or "misreading" because DeLillo's dialogue begs this intense, psychological, and critical interpretation. He demands that you internalize these characters and feel what they feel. The same way Real Housewives is so entertaining to some people.
It explores suicide from a very interesting angle as well. *double spoiler alert* The juxtaposition of Livia's pregnancy and Michael's suicide is another one of those slightly unnerving, but genuinely interesting dynamics in this book. The play refuss to acknowledge Livia (woah!! she has live in her name!!) and her clamours for attention. She declares her illegitimate baby on live TV and is pretty much dismissed. She represents those who have intentionally sold their souls to the media.
*tw suicide*
Searching "famous suicide" on google will render these lists of people who are known because they've killed themselves. Articles from Buzzfeed and trashy gossip pages, to Suicide Prevention websites. Wikipedia has a list of every person who has committed suicide and also has a wikipedia article about them. You can scroll down and read the a description of the life of anybody who was anybody who killed themselves. *still spoilers* Henry is in the public eye after his airline escapades, and everything he only deals with his suicide through the lens of a camera. He just repeats these choice phrases over and over again to deflect any inquiry. He even says "I remember dying" (in what I assume to be saying in a dramatic ironic sort of way) to deflect Delfina's inquiries. And it is here at the end that Delillo works his magic with choice quotes like "How do you tell the difference between identity and desperation?" and really chilling monologues equating martyrdom to submitting to the "soulful exposure" of the media.
That's something I can mess with honestly. Delillo talks the talk and also walks the walk.
August 5, 2008
Loved the first act, hated most of the second except for the very end.
The first act is complicated and brilliant. A man who had a silly experience (though there is something dark hiding in the corner) tells his story to the media in a never-ending series of interviews. Over the course of several days of repeating the same words, he starts becomes unable to say anything else; he is a scratched record frantically jumping between the same sentences getting more and more lost in the process. It is devastating.
The second act completely changes structures. The whole act is an Oprah-esque talkshow in which the man and his wife are told to say something that doesn't bore the host. infidelities are cliche, the man's stated story has been said, she wants something deeper. This part doesn't really come together. The host seems to be too much of a parrody to really get into the deepness she is seeking. Maybe that's the point? That people are so willing to be a part of what is expected of them that it doesn't take a particularly savvy interviewer to get the darkness into the light, just as long as a camera is watching and an audience is listening. I know that this sounds like a great idea, and it is, but for me it wasn't fully coming together.
When the fullness of events finally come out in the end, it is rather effective, though I dont think the action on stage is the best solution, it still manages to be powerful.
The first act is complicated and brilliant. A man who had a silly experience (though there is something dark hiding in the corner) tells his story to the media in a never-ending series of interviews. Over the course of several days of repeating the same words, he starts becomes unable to say anything else; he is a scratched record frantically jumping between the same sentences getting more and more lost in the process. It is devastating.
The second act completely changes structures. The whole act is an Oprah-esque talkshow in which the man and his wife are told to say something that doesn't bore the host. infidelities are cliche, the man's stated story has been said, she wants something deeper. This part doesn't really come together. The host seems to be too much of a parrody to really get into the deepness she is seeking. Maybe that's the point? That people are so willing to be a part of what is expected of them that it doesn't take a particularly savvy interviewer to get the darkness into the light, just as long as a camera is watching and an audience is listening. I know that this sounds like a great idea, and it is, but for me it wasn't fully coming together.
When the fullness of events finally come out in the end, it is rather effective, though I dont think the action on stage is the best solution, it still manages to be powerful.
November 24, 2012
Best play I've read in a while, although I think I liked the first act a little better than the second. The first act took the (now almost cliche) concept of leaving the reader guessing about the central actions that the plot is based upon to an entirely new level, which made it very hard to put down (I couldn't help finishing the play in an afternoon). The main protagonist spends most of the first act talking to a sea of reporters (all of whom are played by the same two people), repeating the same things over so many times that he starts to lose and confuse himself amidst the endless repetition of his story. Another funny part about the first act is that the reporters continually ask the protagonist to take things back to the beginning, telling the story almost in reverse and infuriating readers, who just want to know what happens next rather than before.
In the second act, the couple at the center of the play are guests on a very strange talk show. Unlike other reporters, who wanted the same story repeated the same way every time, the talk show host wants different and more shocking things. It seems all the media exposure has made the couple drop all their inhibitions, making them all too eager to share things with the host that they have never shared with each other or even with themselves. The ending gets a little weird, but it's still really good and it gives the play a great deal of finality.
In the second act, the couple at the center of the play are guests on a very strange talk show. Unlike other reporters, who wanted the same story repeated the same way every time, the talk show host wants different and more shocking things. It seems all the media exposure has made the couple drop all their inhibitions, making them all too eager to share things with the host that they have never shared with each other or even with themselves. The ending gets a little weird, but it's still really good and it gives the play a great deal of finality.
May 14, 2017
Just about readable because most of the dialogue is a classic DeLillo disquisition on air travel. As a play it must have been torture to sit through. The blurb on the back cover makes the remarkable claim that "This is the way we talk to each other today." It's really not, as anyone who has even a passing familiarity with DeLillo's work would know. One for purists only.
November 17, 2019
So very 1999. You can feel the nineties in the prose, the Y2K. A pleasant flashback to a simpler time.
It’s not a bad play, it’s simply outdated. The problem with writing stories about mass culture is that mass culture changes so quickly.
It would seem the prophetic DeLillo failed to predict the Internet. If only he could have seen what was to come, he would have written a different play.
It’s not a bad play, it’s simply outdated. The problem with writing stories about mass culture is that mass culture changes so quickly.
It would seem the prophetic DeLillo failed to predict the Internet. If only he could have seen what was to come, he would have written a different play.
May 30, 2020
Pics or it didn't happen but its 1999
November 24, 2020
Read this in just one sitting. It's a weird interview drama. All that I got was that Media is affecting personal lives a lot. I did enjoy reading it, however.
December 6, 2022
Yo amo a Don Delillo pero esta obra me pareció que no pasa de un mal intento de soberbia intelectual.
March 7, 2025
I felt just okay on this one. There were definitely some wonderful moments of Delillo clarity, particularly in the second act. However, I felt it never really fully activated for me. I found the ending unsatisfying in a way that feels uncharacteristic in his body of work. Of course it’s a play, and perhaps a performance of it would highlight some aspect that isn’t appearing through the dialogue and stage direction alone. Overall it was a fine, short play, though definitely not his best.
October 12, 2023
Clear precursor to The Silence with all the same pros and cons but a little better in the play format
January 14, 2024
Apart from the enjoyment of reading an absurd fever dream, this is a polished example of the dialogic Delilloisms one enjoys plucking from his longer novels.
November 6, 2025
i’m convinced my english teacher secretly published this and made us buy it for extra revenue
July 15, 2016
Dude wants to fly to Valparaiso, Indiana, but ends up in Chile by accident, “a business traveler who blundered into an epic adventure” (38). The play is a series of interviews that follow upon this event, which is presented as though worthy of attention: “a self-commenting super-verite in which everything that goes into the making of the film is the film” (36).
Some cool concepts: a xenological effort insofar as “some stranger had crept inside” the protagonist (34); an implosion of the philosophy of the subject with “Because this is the subject. This is the object” (37).
Some archival undecidability in the premise of dude’s travel to the extent that “I don’t know whether it’s the ticket or the itinerary that’s wrong. The ticket has more authority” (54).
Along with this normal DeLillo focus on douchebag-abroad, there’s also the cocked up marriage: “[spouse] found new levels of openness since Michael made his breathtaking journey” (30); trauma is transformative insofar as “sex is more intense since [he] made his journey” (77).
Dude tells interviewer to interview parcels of his spouse:
Nevertheless: “I have orgasms that last all day. I take them to the dry cleaner and the shoe repair” (79)—an indication that the orgasm is quiritary, mortmain, or allodial property in the sense that it cannot be alienated for the purposes of transfer to another. Text otherwise however insists that “everything’s disposable,” “everything’s replaceable” (97), implying a fungibility of persons that is violative of every ethics I know.
Second Act shifts gears from interview to television talk show presentation. Show’s host enjoins audience:
Key undecidability of the text is whether dude’s fairly pitiful misadventures & cross accidents constitute “self-recognition” or “self-knowledge” (74)—the confrontation of anagnorisis with the gnothi seauton. The outcome: “We barely recognize ourselves as being whoever we are” (78). Or the other way: “This is a man so deep in self-estrangement he conceals his own actions from himself” (87).
Recommended for those who think the purpose of day is to interpret the night, wearers of erotomaniacal undergarments, and readers who wake in the morning undifferentiated.
Some cool concepts: a xenological effort insofar as “some stranger had crept inside” the protagonist (34); an implosion of the philosophy of the subject with “Because this is the subject. This is the object” (37).
Some archival undecidability in the premise of dude’s travel to the extent that “I don’t know whether it’s the ticket or the itinerary that’s wrong. The ticket has more authority” (54).
Along with this normal DeLillo focus on douchebag-abroad, there’s also the cocked up marriage: “[spouse] found new levels of openness since Michael made his breathtaking journey” (30); trauma is transformative insofar as “sex is more intense since [he] made his journey” (77).
Dude tells interviewer to interview parcels of his spouse:
Interview her uterus. That’s where all the plots intersect. Talk to her nipples. Her nipples are sensitive to messages from orbiting satellites. You’ll get some stimulating quotes. Talk to her clitoris. You’ll have to submit questions in advance. The clitoris doesn’t always speak to me. But it will speak to you. It speaks in codes. It speaks in tongues. (48)Despite this, dude contends that “there are no facts in a marriage” (56). Otherwise characterized as “the squeezing of spaces,” marriage involves an “enforced intimacy” (77).
Nevertheless: “I have orgasms that last all day. I take them to the dry cleaner and the shoe repair” (79)—an indication that the orgasm is quiritary, mortmain, or allodial property in the sense that it cannot be alienated for the purposes of transfer to another. Text otherwise however insists that “everything’s disposable,” “everything’s replaceable” (97), implying a fungibility of persons that is violative of every ethics I know.
Second Act shifts gears from interview to television talk show presentation. Show’s host enjoins audience:
I am here to declare your specialness. I am here to separate you from the grim business of your nonaudience lives. I summon you to a hyperlife. (63)He wants them to “cross the critical divide into some plane of transcendence” (64). (This sort of talk should place us back into Derrida’s solicitation of Heidegger in Aporias.) Stage direction makes plain “the eerie fluorescence that suggests the hyperreality of a filmed TV commercial potentially viewable in a thousand cities, at twenty-second intervals, day and night, for an indefinite period of time” (68), all the standard indicia of postmodern rootlessness. (“Off-camera lives are unverifiable” (83).)
Key undecidability of the text is whether dude’s fairly pitiful misadventures & cross accidents constitute “self-recognition” or “self-knowledge” (74)—the confrontation of anagnorisis with the gnothi seauton. The outcome: “We barely recognize ourselves as being whoever we are” (78). Or the other way: “This is a man so deep in self-estrangement he conceals his own actions from himself” (87).
Recommended for those who think the purpose of day is to interpret the night, wearers of erotomaniacal undergarments, and readers who wake in the morning undifferentiated.
March 26, 2012
The mood of this book was difficult to grasp. Watching this YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdFC1H...) of scene clips from a French production of Valparaiso made me realize I was really underestimating the dreaminess at first.
I think one of the main points DeLillo is trying to emphasize is the amplification of the minutiae of our human experience in today's world of mass communication. Delfina's bit especially. This poor guy made a flight plan error and he becomes a worldwide superstar. But the masses don't care about him. They want short, easily digestible tidbits about his mistake. They bore quickly. They care about what he thought while he was screwing his wife the morning before, or the kind of floss he used to tie a bag around his head in a pseudo-suicide attempt ("Waxed or unwaxed? Because this is what we need to know").
The message is even more apropos in 2012 than it was in 1999. Facebook, Twitter, and mobile phones document every day, practically every second, but only the surface stuff - rarely do they add to the feeling of a man or do they contribute to the sum of a man's life. That deeper stuff doesn't sell as well, and plus "off-camera lives are unverifiable." With so many trivial details ready for rapid consumption, why would anyone bore themselves trying to truly understand a person? "...we can't stop needing. Everything is disposable."
Delfina claims that "each life [is] so dense and rich", but I don't think she truly understands what Livia understands - that knowing a person goes far beyond the face-value interview questions or the small-talk.
I didn't really enjoy reading this book. I'm not even sure if I really get it. The last fifty pages were positively Out There.
I think one of the main points DeLillo is trying to emphasize is the amplification of the minutiae of our human experience in today's world of mass communication. Delfina's bit especially. This poor guy made a flight plan error and he becomes a worldwide superstar. But the masses don't care about him. They want short, easily digestible tidbits about his mistake. They bore quickly. They care about what he thought while he was screwing his wife the morning before, or the kind of floss he used to tie a bag around his head in a pseudo-suicide attempt ("Waxed or unwaxed? Because this is what we need to know").
The message is even more apropos in 2012 than it was in 1999. Facebook, Twitter, and mobile phones document every day, practically every second, but only the surface stuff - rarely do they add to the feeling of a man or do they contribute to the sum of a man's life. That deeper stuff doesn't sell as well, and plus "off-camera lives are unverifiable." With so many trivial details ready for rapid consumption, why would anyone bore themselves trying to truly understand a person? "...we can't stop needing. Everything is disposable."
Delfina claims that "each life [is] so dense and rich", but I don't think she truly understands what Livia understands - that knowing a person goes far beyond the face-value interview questions or the small-talk.
I didn't really enjoy reading this book. I'm not even sure if I really get it. The last fifty pages were positively Out There.
August 9, 2022
“MICHAEL: But what am I saying when I say this? What's in our lives together, hers and mine, that I can speak about? Do you understand how tremendously dense? A minute in a room, together. How every minute is a recapitulation of her life, or mine. I feel this in a room sometimes. Or both our lives, crowding down on us. Do you see how every half second. Does this make sense? How it squirms with our histories, our psychologies. Do you understand how this agglomeration. I don’t know if that's the word. How the simplest exchange. How the smallest half second is so filled and mingled with human miscellany. Nothing can be isolated and identified. There are no facts in a marriage. Do I want to be alone? Terrifies me. But have I learned how to live with someone else? When I saw the towering mountains capped with snow. Who in the pits of existence is she that I have to share with her my every breath? Eyes are pouchy. Face is drained. We'd had an interlude of sex in the predawn dark. Not one skimpy kiss. We aren't here to kiss. Does she even know it's me? Does she remotely care? Does she even open her eyes to see that it's me?”
October 5, 2016
Um engano ao apanhar um avião desvia um homem de Valparaíso, Florida para Valparaíso no Chile. Este incidente insignificante vai coloca-lo à mercê da máquina mediática, sem pronta a explorar os acontecimentos mais irrelevantes e em torna-los temas centrais, que o acabará por destruir.
Uma peça inquietante sobre a busca da identidade, sobre o vazio da alma humana que se descobre para lá do que pensamos superficialmente ser e de como os média se transformaram numa gigantesco aparelho de prospectar o interior das pessoas acabando por descascar camada a camada a personalidade das pessoas e por revelar um enorme vácuo quando o último véu, atrás do qual nos escondemos, é levantado. Neste sentido este é um texto profundamente impregnado de filosofia budista.
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Uma peça inquietante sobre a busca da identidade, sobre o vazio da alma humana que se descobre para lá do que pensamos superficialmente ser e de como os média se transformaram numa gigantesco aparelho de prospectar o interior das pessoas acabando por descascar camada a camada a personalidade das pessoas e por revelar um enorme vácuo quando o último véu, atrás do qual nos escondemos, é levantado. Neste sentido este é um texto profundamente impregnado de filosofia budista.
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December 18, 2015
"It was OK" is a pretty good summation of my thoughts. There are a few premises of this play I liked: the chorus made up of flight attendants and the protagonist seeking to make the most of a mistaken flight. I'm ambivalent about the whole failing-to-find-identity-through-display-on-modern-media: yes, it's a point that is worth making, but it seems like it's been made quite often before, and better. Valparaiso reads like a play written by an acclaimed novelist--probably not even one-tenth the length of DeLillo's normal novel, but still sounds like cold text on a page rather than a script actors can make come alive. Apparently there was recently a production in New York that succeeded--after several other troupes failed--so I guess it can be done. But to me it came off cold.
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