Don DeLillo's work is known for addressing certain topics in depth; among these are television and consumerism. Most articles focus their attention on White Noise; however, if one reads pretty much any work by DeLillo, mass media – newspapers, radio, television, film, the internet, in addition to the mass consumption and information overload that comes with them – will be present either as a major thematic concern or a steady, omniscient buzz in the background. For the handful of texts in which it is not, particularly those of the twenty-first century, their characters often retreat to almost uninhabited and occasionally downright inhospitable settings, making the near absence of technology all the more palpable. Written before the release of The Silence (2020), this chapter demonstrates how DeLillo’s body of work – from Americana (1970) to Zero K (2016) – documents how mass media since the mid-twentieth century has helped shape individual identity, culture, and history in the USA, as well as anticipating some of the dangers mass media man poses to contemporary society.

With so much attention on DeLillo’s novels, it is easy to lose track of his success and eminence as a playwright. DeLillo has written five full-length plays, The Engineer of Moonlight (1979), The Day Room (first production 1986), Valparaiso (first production 1999), Love-Lies-Bleeding (first production 2005), and The Word for Snow (first production 2007), several of which continue to be produced regularly in theatres throughout the world. Through these plays, readers can understand the influence of various playwrights on both the plays and the novels, as well as the influence that DeLillo’s sociopolitical context had on his playwriting. By examining the wider context in which the plays sit, in addition to the theatrical elements of spoken word, scene, spectatorship and ephemerality, we will notice how writing for the theatre is a political act for this writer.