If we’re asked to imagine what the end of the world would look like, I suspect that many of us would picture cold darkness with some sort of apocalyptic event happening around us. Perhaps it was fortuitous then that I saw The Voices We Hear at the Edinburgh Fringe on a night when thunder and lightning crackled overhead and it felt like the city would drown in a torrent of rain showers.
The atmosphere was certainly bolstered by the play being staged at the Fringe’s first zero waste venue, The Greenhouse, which means no electricity. As our small audience took shelter in the dark (but surprisingly dry) structure perched just outside Dynamic Earth, the end of the world couldn’t have felt more imminent.
The play itself focusses on the connections we would make, and perhaps be forced to make if the end of the world was indeed nigh. Two characters pick up communications via short distance radio and share stories of how they have survived so far, the things they miss most and how life could perhaps continue. Of course, there is a twist which I won’t spoil for you here, but it certainly makes us wonder if we can ever know the right path to take.
The intimacy of the performance is astounding, due in no small part to the exceptional performances from Molly Williams and Georgina Savage who pull out in vivid detail the pain and suffering which has engulfed them personally in these loneliest of moments. Directed by Oli Savage and Louis Catliff, The Voices We Hear asks us to look at a reflection of ourselves in these two lost souls, who turn to each other because they simply have no one else to turn to.
Running at around 40 minutes, The Voices We Hear is one of the shortest plays you’ll see at The Edinburgh Fringe, but it will also be one of the most though provoking, and perhaps even the most atmospheric. If the world is to end in our lifetimes, you’ll want to have experienced this intensely moving drama first.
