BOX CUTTER

Aguirre’s reputation means audiences might not expect racy love story part of the performance

Carmen Aguirre’s raw account of her life in the Chilean resistance returns to the Cultch for another filterless round.

Blue Box Oct. 9 to Nov. 1 | Arts Club Theatre Revue Stage Tickets & info: $ 25 to $ 35, artsclub.com

MARK LEIREN- YOUNG

How’s this for a catchy quote for a theatre poster: “Carmen Aguirre is a bloody terrorist — CBC.”

The Arts Club may not be using that line to promote Aguirre’s autobiographical solo show Blue Box, which opens Oct. 15 ( previews from Oct. 9) at their Revue Stage, but there will certainly be audience members buying tickets because of it.

Aguirre was already a successful playwright and performer when Blue Box last played Vancouver in 2012. That sold- out run at the Cultch came a few weeks after her memoir Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter won CBC’s Canada Reads competition. Aguirre’s book about her life in the Chilean resistance became the most talked- about contender in that year’s contest even before taking the top prize because one of the judges, Quebec lawyer Anne-France Goldwater, declared Aguirre was “a bloody terrorist.”

The book — and Canada Reads — made national headlines.

Aguirre became a bestselling author, then went back to her regularly scheduled life as a playwright and performer — but now she was also a celebrity.

“It’s thanks to Canada Reads that we have huge audiences for Blue Box,” Aguirre says from her Vancouver home.

The catch is that some audience members on the show’s national tour expect Aguirre to do nothing but talk politics. And while

Blue Box is political, it’s also a love story. Sort of.

“I think that people that come to see it who have read Something Fierce or who only are expecting for me to talk about politics are a little bit thrown off by half the story, which is basically about sex and about chasing a completely unavailable man. They’re not expecting that, and I’ve heard a lot that they don’t like that part of the show. They wish that it was all about politics, so that’s interesting,” Aguirre says. “I guess people see me that way, which I find very funny.”

Aguirre laughs as she explains that anyone expecting the show to be a political manifesto finds out what they’re in for early in the show. Her opening line, “Hi everyone, and welcome to Blue

…” She

“The story of Vision Man triggers a lot of people. … Men get very upset at me for chasing this guy to begin with and cannot understand, or say they cannot understand, why I would chase somebody who’s unavailable. CARMEN AGUIRRE CREATOR AND STAR OF BLUE BOX

then uses a four- letter word I’m not sure I’m even allowed to imply in the paper beyond saying that one of its slang synonyms is “box.”

Aguirre definitely works blue, using the original showbiz definition. Aguirre says her use of sexually explicit language “makes some people very uncomfortable,” but not always the people you’d expect.

During a recent run in Ottawa, Aguirre says her producers were concerned the sexual content would turn off their subscribers. “What ended up happening was that the old ladies — I’m talking old, I’m talking 80- and 90- year- olds who had subscriptions — came to see the play over and over and over again and sat in the front row and loved it precisely because there was a woman standing three feet away from them being very sexually assertive on the stage without making a big deal about that assertiveness.”

The play isn’t just raw, it’s fiercely intimate. Aguirre talks for 90 minutes and the house lights stay up through the show. Aguirre’s director and longtime friend Brian Quirt from Toronto’s Nightswimming Theatre commissioned the piece with the following provisos.

“The form would be direct address to the audience with no fourth wall: no filters, no props, no set, wearing street clothing and talking to them about my life as if it were a very informal, intimate conversation — but of course the writing would be structured to a T,” Aguirre says. Nevertheless, because it’s so informal, the audience sometimes talks back and Aguirre goes off script.

But there is a script built around two stories — chasing a completely unavailable guy she refers to as Vision Man, and being chased 10 years earlier by Argentina’s secret police.

Aguirre says the controversies over the show tend to be about sexual politics.

“The story of Vision Man triggers a lot of people,” she says. “Men get very upset at me for chasing this guy to begin with and cannot understand, or say they cannot understand, why I would chase somebody who’s unavailable. Whereas the women get totally onside because they’ve all done it, or are in the middle of doing it themselves. And they feel great that somebody’s actually up there talking about it.”