I Can’t Hear You

Lights flash, music thuds in our chests. Ash and Lucy dance. It’s chaotic, it’s free. A bottle smashes at their feet. Was it thrown? The music stops, they’re flung apart. They leave the glass shattered on the dance floor, unaware of the new formed crack fracturing the foundations of their relationship. I Can’t Hear You (longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting 2021) by Natasha Brotherdale Smith is a queer, female led two hander, a vital play that’s unique in both it’s storytelling and content. This is a play for the people who feel like they don’t necessarily fit into the ‘rainbow- flag- waving’ community and understand the weight that can carry. This is a thrillingly fast paced piece of new writing, a love story at it’s core, with a lot to say about the reality of being a queer female today. Told in three intersecting timeframes, it’s a heart wrenchingly nuanced exploration of the fear of being honest with yourself, secrets too large to vocalise and the shattering effects of hate crime. This play is a call to change.