Rhubarb-o-rama! Plays and Playwrights From the Rhubarb! Festival

Abstract

As theatre festivals go in Canada, Toronto’s Rhubarb! has always been something of an anomaly. Not only does it take place at the wrong time of year (late January or early February, instead of the customary summer months), it absolutely refuses to take itself too seriously, or to let others do so: a loosely juried, Equity-exempt showcase for independent theatre, Rhubarb! has also, since 1986, banned critics from reviewing performances. The more dissident meanings attached to the name itself encapsulate something of the original festival participants’ sense of anarchy and spirit of experimentation: produced for the past twenty years by Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (in conjunction with Nightwood Theatre for five of those years), Rhubarb! was (and still is) all about taking the buzz and bedlam at the back of the stage and placing it front and centre, an aesthetic strategy that often proved bitter medicine for Toronto’s more staid audience members during the festival’s early years.