Written and directed by Carmen Aguirre. A Studio 58 production. At Studio 58 on Sunday, March 26. Continues until April 9

“It takes courage to remember. It takes courage to forget.” These lines bookend The Refugee Hotel, written and directed by Carmen Aguirre, and though the words are simple, they carry a heavy weight: to survive is to find a way to live with trauma, even if it seems impossible.

Aguirre was a six-year-old refugee from Chile when she arrived in Vancouver in 1974, following Augusto Pinochet’s violent coup the previous year. She herself lived in what she calls a “refugee hotel” located on Denman Street. Following the dictator’s arrest in 1998, Aguirre wrote a fictionalized autobiographical account of one week in the life of the inhabitants of the Refugee Hotel.

Fat Jorge (Logan Fenske) and Flaca (Elizabeth Barrett) have just arrived with their young children, Manuelita (Krista Skwarok) and Joselito (Teo Saefkow). Jorge and Flaca have both been held, interrogated, and tortured, but while Flaca wants to talk about her ordeal—she’s been away from her family for two years and has experienced horrific things—Jorge tries to drown his perpetual night terrors in booze. Soon, four more refugees arrive, and the group bonds quickly. But it’s a volatile closeness, forged out of the shared experience of exile. There are blow-ups and hook-ups, suicide attempts, speeches, and, for some, catharsis.

The Refugee Hotel describes itself as a dark comedy, which is a bit of a stretch. The grim specificity of the torture is awful, necessary, and occasionally shocking. There is humour, and Aguirre’s ability to find it in spaces where none should exist is a marvel, but most of the actors don’t seem to possess much comic timing, and some are stiff and overly mannered in their delivery. The absence of Latin actors is addressed both in Aguirre’s directorial note and by the cast in their own separate program acknowledgment, but I can’t help but wonder what might have been possible if Studio 58’s student population weren’t quite so white.

But Aguirre’s been trying to convince Vancouver theatre companies to produce The Refugee Hotel for 15 years, and Studio 58 is the first one to take it on. Though it’s not a flawless production, it’s an important one for so many reasons, not the least of which is our current political climate regarding refugees and oppressive, violent dictatorships. What makes The Refugee Hotel resonate so deeply is its authenticity and heart. A play about refugees written by a refugee is an all too rare experience in the theatre, but it shouldn’t be. The Refugee Hotel reminds us how much more powerful it can be when people tell their own stories.