A play by Don DeLillo, 2006
Published by Scribner, 2006 ($15.00, trade paperback). The
cover photo is by Jason
Fulford.
"Love-Lies-Bleeding" editions.
Dedication: "to Nan Graham" (Scribner publisher & editor)
What it's about: An artist patriarch is on life support, and family members converge to decide what is to be done.
Here's a short (30 seconds) MP3 audio clip of DeLillo explaining the genesis of the play.
April 13, 2006 - An Associated Press article on the upcoming Chicago production of "Love-Lies-Bleeding" ran in a number places; in the LA Times on April 10, 2006 "DeLillo adds a little drama to his life" by Hillel Italie (elsewhere the headline was "DeLillo goes where novelists fear to tread: Stage"). Reports on rehearsals of the play, with some quotes from DeLillo who was in town, along with some history on novelists attempting to write for the stage. Here are two tidbits:
"I think a writer's greatness may well be defined by his lack of adaptability to other forms," DeLillo tells The Associated Press during a post-rehearsal interview. "A writer may have a narrow range of interests, even a narrow sight line into human complexity, but if he writes a certain way, and with a certain intensity, for a certain period of time, this may well be what constitutes greatness."
"With a novel, the book is done, it's finished and it stays the same," he says. "With a play, there's change, not only over a broad span of time, but from night to night; the play changes from one night to the next. ... This is something I am very open to, probably because I am not exclusively a playwright."
Feb 21, 2006 - A nice article in Melbourne's The Age, "Lurking around society's edges" on DeLillo and "Love-Lies-Bleeding", dated Feb 22, 2006. The writer interviewed DeLillo in New York City, and the piece includes some quotes from him; here's one:
"They are in a state of stark isolation," he says of his characters, "Outside of the influence of lawyers, doctors and clergymen. I wanted them to be dealing simply with their own feelings, emotions and predilections."
A separate page lists the Productions of Love-Lies-Bleeding.