Like its red crunchy namesake, the 24 plays featured in this year’s Retro Rhubarb! Theatre Festival have one thing in common: they are all thoroughly delicious. Other than that, you are unlikely to find any common flavours among this year’s crop of works.
This year the festival, which is presented by the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and is now in its 26th year of production, combines young and old, as well as new and classic. Moynan King curates 17 new works by playwrights such as Peter Lynch and Hope Thompson, while Franco Boni brings seven classic Rhubarb! plays, including Nancy Drew (Without a Clue) by (now-famous author and playwright) Ann-Marie MacDonald and Beverly Cooper, back to the stage.
As part of the festival, Boni also curates the Under 21 Series, which he started in 1998 in order to “give creators under the age of 21 a chance to produce a play with a director and full technical support.” This makes it more process-oriented, rather than product-oriented, as the playwrights are also able to work with a professional writer who helps them to edit and revise their work along the way.
Chris Jai, one of this year’s Under 21 playwrights, says one of the best things about the Rhubarb! Festival is that it “showcases new artists and youth,” and offers them “a place to actually perform.” For Jai, who wrote and will perform in the one-man play Church Street Blues, “writing is how I flush my emotions, it’s like second-nature.” It’s understandable that the second-year York University student was eager to be a part of the Under 21 Series after working with Boni last year during the SummerWorks program, another youth initiative coordinated by the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and produced by Boni.
Established in 1979, the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre is “dedicated to the promotion of gay, lesbian and queer theatrical expression.” Its youth initiative programs allow young Canadians to “research the history of the LGBT community in Toronto and to develop a new collective theatre creation based on that history.”
The theatre’s philosophy makes being part of the Under 21 Series an all-encompassing experience. The series combines the practical advantages of being able to work with people who are established in the theatre community with the personal rewards that come from expressing yourself and sharing a story with that community. The Rhubarb! Festival “allowed me to open myself up,” says Jai, “There are a lot of teens who are like me; lots of teens who have to deal with acceptance and being themselves.”
Jai, like most teens, had to struggle with the concept of individuality while growing up.
“When I was young it was hard for me to open up, especially being queer and coming from a traditional Catholic family. I’m now involved more politically and socially,” he says.
Not only has the Rhubarb! Festival “transformed what is exciting and acceptable on stage,” it has also been “a fundamental part of Canadian theatre development” for the past 26 years. Perhaps this commitment to a distinctly Canadian theatre (which then infiltrates into the creation of a distinctly Canadian culture) is what helped Jai and other contributors find a picture of unity and acceptance in a festival that is a montage of Canadian society. “I find Canadian theatre open,” says Jai. “We don’t censor ourselves, we explore things.”
This attitude is fundamental to the Rhubarb! Festival. Boni, curator of this year’s retrospective works, chose to resurrect plays that “would capture the spirit of Rhubarb.” He sifted through all of the plays from the past 26 festivals and found ones that “were representative of those early years.”
But what exactly encapsulates the spirit of Rhubarb? “It’s just the people or the actors or the creators,” says Boni. If the spirit of the festival that is “committed to the development of new Canadian work” lies in the people involved in each production, it seems fitting that this year’s featured playwrights include everyone from Ann-Marie MacDonald and Peter Lynch to Chris Jai.
Not that the celebrity of the playwright is what draws the audience. “Nobody knew who Ann-Marie MacDonald was back when she wrote Nancy Drew,” says Boni. “She was just somebody who had a ton of talent.” No matter how diverse the playwrights are, their pieces all share the elements of success: solid writing, character development and a unique plot.
This means that, for Jai, the future looks promising. However, he’s keeping his options open and is pursuing theatre out of interest, and not necessarily as a lifetime career. And what does he hope to achieve through the festival? “I want to inspire people and showcase my work,” he says. Plus, there’s the thrill of seeing his work on stage, which, he says, “just gives you shivers.”
The Rhubarb Festival continues at the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre until Feb. 22. For tickets and more info, call (416) 975-8555 or visit buddiesinbadtimestheatre.com.
