Theater: Can You Hear Their Voices? @ NW Vista College

Can You Hear Their Voices? is a drama written and set in 1931, at the beginning of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought that affected thousands of American farmers. This story juxtaposes the plight of poor farmers against the lavish lifestyles of Washington elite. Can You Hear Their Voices? is a significant play about American history that is rarely produced. The 1931 play by Hallie Flanagan and her former student Margaret Ellen Clifford was based on the short story “Can You Make Out Their Voices” by Whittaker Chambers.

This play is one of the earliest examples of Agitprop theatre in the U.S. It also is a forerunner of the “Living Newspaper” theatrical form in the U.S. The short story derives from a news story in January 1931 about tenant farmers in Arkansas, who raided a local Red Cross office to feed themselves. Chambers picked up on a common fear of the moment, namely, that this event marked the beginning of further popular uprisings in the face of drought and depression. In his story, the farmers have in their midst a quiet, dignified man—a communist—who unites them so that they take food by gunpoint, opposing the town’s top businessman. The play changed the short story’s outcome in Arkansas from armed to non-violent confrontation and ends with a question, Can you hear what the farmers are saying, and what will you do about it.”[10]