"Chambers' true tale of desperate tenant farmers inspired a play that was ahead of its time: it predates John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath by eight years and Clifford Odets' Waiting for Lefty by four. Translations According to Chambers, "In a few months, the little story had been translated even into Chinese and Japanese and was being played in workers' theaters all over the world." In 1931, Nathaniel Buchwald translated the play into Yiddish as Trikenish ("Drought"). In November 1931, ARTEF performed the Yiddish-language play, directed by Beno Schneider, at the Heckscher Theatre on Fifth Avenue at 104 Street. According to the Vassar Miscellany News, by early 1932 "By this date, translations had already appeared in Japanese, Yiddish, German, French, and Russian "with immediate prospects of translation into Chinese, and possibly Spanish and other languages." Background The short story "Can You Make Out Their Voices" first appeared in the March 1931 issue of New Masses magazine. Chambers said that he wrote the story in a single night. It received immediate coverage in the New York World-Telegram. Flanagan herself later called it "one of the great American short stories." Among the story's earliest readers was Flanagan's former student, Margaret Ellen Clifford (later chair of Drama at Skidmore College, 1952-1971.) According to Flanagan, the two of them finished the scenario for a stage version in one night. Vassar library staff and journalism students contributed research, while her drama students helped with the writing. Plot synopsis Short story "Can You Make Out Their Voices" 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 (a local banker, no less—a typical fat cat). Chambers had been editing the Daily Worker newspaper for several years and wanted to stop writing "political polemics, which few people ever wanted to read." Instead, he wanted to write "stories that anybody might want to read—stories in which the correct conduct of the Communist would be shown in action and without political comment." Play Can You Hear Their Voices? keeps much