New play "Anywhere But Here" debuts Latinx work Vancouver's been missing for too long

Three decades after a series of dreams marked her start at theatre school, playwright Carmen Aquirre has channeled those sleeping stories with rapper Shad Kabngo into Anywhere But Here. Debuting at the 2020 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, this epic and surreal tale is at times nightmarish while also remaining full of life, beauty, music and humour. 

Aquirre describes her new work as an outer representation of the inner turmoil of an exile—an experience completely separate from that of an immigrant, who decides to leave their homeland for a new place and new opportunities. 

“An exile is somebody who has been expelled from their land, so they are unwanted in their homeland and they are unwanted in their new land,” says Aguirre. “They're all about the triumphant return to the homeland— they're not about setting down the roots in the new land. So it truly is a state of complete uprootedness and displacement.” 

The plot takes place almost entirely at the U.S.-Mexico border, and is anchored by a family of socialist revolutionaries who came to Vancouver in 1973 after Pinochet's fascist coup in Chile. In their 1979 reality, the family struggles to understand each other, where home is and what that means. Matriarch Laura is trying to break free of a mother/whore dichotomy by embracing 1970’s feminism. Meanwhile, the father, Manuel, yearns for Chile, and for the couple’s relationship to be restored to what it was before the family was exiled to Canada. Preteen sisters Lupe and Carolita provide much of the humour throughout the play, as they constantly bicker with each other and sass their parents.

After witnessing Laura kissing a Canadian activist, Manuel grabs his daughters and starts driving south. Once they reach the border their story starts intersecting with other characters and timelines, including General Juana (an early 1900’s revolutionary) the spirit of Laura's Aunt Lili, reincarnated as a monarch butterfly, and a present-day young Honduran migrant named Arcangel. 

Ongoing mass migration at the US-Mexico border point to the work’s timeliness, yet the play’s intersecting timelines spotlight themes we’ve seen throughout history worldwide.

“There's a phrase that's used in activism that also appears in the play, ’We are here because they are there’,” explains actor Christina Quintana, who plays Laura. “Canadian imperialist activities in other countries is what forces migration that makes people unsafe in their own countries. These are well documented truths that we prefer not to look directly at.”

Notably, Anywhere But Here has a predominantly Latinx cast and crew. Quintana, Dominguez and Aguirre are all part of the Canadian Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition (CALTAC) which is hosting Coyuntura, a Latinx international theatre gathering later this month. While the show was the first Latinx play to premiere on a Canadian main stage, the artists hope that it won’t be the last.

“We're here, but we just don't know about each other because there hasn't been a place for us to reach out to each other and it's been pretty isolating,” says Arcangel actor Alen Dominguez. “There also just hasn't been a ton of content for Latinx theatre artists to be on the forefront of the arts in Canada. So the biggest goal in the beginning was just to bring this community together.” 

Anywhere But Here runs until February 15th at the Vancouver Playhouse. The play is just over two hours long and tickets cost between $19.99 - $60.00. 

Coyuntura takes place from February 14th – 16th. Proceeds from the ticket sales will go directly to the Unist'ot'en Camp Legal Fund and non-Latinx allies are encouraged to attend.