Chile Con Carne & Other Early Works

Three early plays from influential Canadian Latina playwright, Carmen Aguirre. The plays, Chile Con Carne, QUE PASA with LA RAZA, eh?, and In a Land Called I Don’t Remember, deal with the experience of exile - the hardships, the heartache, and the horror - as well as revealing the fresh perspective refugees bring to North American society. Written in the 1990s, all three plays explore the far-reaching effects of the violence and terror the regime of now-ousted dictator Augusto Pinochet, still in power during the plays’ composition, inflicted on the Chilean population, both at home and abroad, effects explored in many of Aguirre’s award-winning later plays. These are impacts refugees cannot escape even when they manage to flee to physical safety; the plays’ explorations of refuge and recovery are as pertinent now as they were when they were first written.

Carmen Aguirre has written and co-written twenty-five plays, including Blue Box, The Trigger, and Chile Con Carne. She is currently touring her latest one-woman show, Broken Tailbone, and is writing three new plays. Her second memoir, Mexican Hooker #1 and My Other Roles Since the Revolution was published in April 2016 to outstanding reviews, was shortlisted for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize, is a Globe and Mail bestseller, and a National Post and CBC Best Book of 2016. Her first book, the critically acclaimed Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter, won CBC Canada Reads 2012 and is a #1 national bestseller. Carmen is the recipient of the Hispanic Business Alliance’s 2014 Ten Most Influential Hispanics in Canada Award, Latincouver’s 2014 Most Inspirational Latin Award, the 2014 Betty Mitchell Outstanding Actor Award for her work in Alberta Theatre Projects’ The Motherfucker with The Hat, the 2012 Langara College Outstanding Alumna Award, the 2011 Union of B.C. Performers’ Lorena Gale Woman of Distinction Award, and the 2002 New Play Centre Award for Best New Play, for The Refugee Hotel. Carmen has over eighty film, TV, and stage acting credits. She is a graduate of Studio 58.