In the 1970s, culturally inclined Torontonians considered a trek to the city’s quaint, CanCon-focused theatres a must. Much buzz surrounded these playhouses as they churned out sexy, controversial dramas. Nowadays, all but the most determined culture vultures have moved on—to Soulpepper’s easier, breezier classics performed by the best actors in the city or, really, to anything happening in one of our deluxe new arts palaces. Always a niche taste, Canadian theatre has become almost irrelevant, sitting on the sidelines of the city’s current cultural renaissance.

I can’t blame those who stay away. A decade and a half of seeing new plays at these houses has done a lot to dampen my own considerable enthusiasm for theatre. In general, there’s too much quirky self-indulgence, not enough committed storytelling; too much about other times, other places, too little about how we live here and now. Some of it is clever, but by and large, the work fails to connect with audiences in a meaningful way.

Not surprisingly, the practitioners are a dispirited, underpaid and embittered lot. After a certain age, if they can, most move on to film, television, journalism or other more lucrative pursuits. The morale and pay are so low that two of Toronto’s most produced playwrights, Jason Sherman and George F. Walker, have fled for movie and TV land. “It’s a very gradual humiliation,” another ex-playwright explains. “It wears you down.”

The Factory and Passe Muraille have both had to fight for their survival over the past decade. Perhaps in light of their parlous finances, they’ve recently taken to replaying old hits, with Passe Muraille last fall reviving its 1999 success, Michael Healey’s much produced The Drawer Boy, and the Factory giving us more and more—and yet more—of George F. Walker. (His 1978 play, Beyond Mozambique, returns there later this month.) “Live performing theatre is a marginal art and has become even more marginal,” award- winning actor R. H. Thomson says ruefully. “But these theatres are still standing and kicking. That’s the headline for me.”

Barely standing and barely kicking. There’s much that’s wrong with English Canadian theatre, and much finger pointing as a result. Some, of course, blame the government—the Tories for suspending grants in the ’90s, and the Liberals for not reinstating them. Others—like Daniel Brooks, the artistic director of the acclaimed small theatre company Necessary Angel—blame the critics. “Unfortunately, we have in the major papers critics who are interested in the language of hits and success and that kind of stuff,” he argues. “Gone are the days when people just go to see something because they’re curious or because they’re following a certain artist.” He’s right about one thing: with so many entertainment options in the city, curiosity is not enough of a motivating factor to get people out to see a new Canadian play. We need to be wooed, but neither the product nor the increasingly decrepit venues are seductive enough.

Without the Factory, Tarragon and Passe Muraille, there would be no English-Canadian theatre to rail against. All three were established in the wave of cultural nationalism that swept the country in the 1960s and ’70s, and each bears the imprint of its founders. All hoped to stage indigenous tales; they are sometimes referred to as the “Our Stories” theatres.

Passe Muraille (“beyond walls”) came first, founded in 1968 by former Rochdale College denizen Jim Garrard, who was later joined by Montrealer Paul Thompson. Both were hippies and fans of experimental, anti-establishment theatre. Their first big hit, 1972’s The Farm Show, pioneered locally the now popular documentary or verbatim theatre format, by turning interviews with farmers from Clinton, Ontario, into dramatic material. The company, now 40, purchased its current digs at Bathurst and Queen with the substantial proceeds from their box office hit I Love You, Baby Blue, a raunchy tribute to Citytv’s late-night soft porn of the ’70s. The play was so racy that the cops paid a visit. No charges were laid, but, still, score one in the fight against Toronto the Good.

Next came the Factory, co-founded in 1970 by Frank Trotz and Ken Gass. Gass, the company’s artistic director and a self-described son of a labourer, programmed drama that would explore the lives of those who toiled (or who might toil, if employed) in actual factories—and the theatre initially operated out of a space above an auto-body shop on Dupont. The first major playwright Gass discovered was George F. Walker, then working as a cabbie; Gass’s own 1977 play, Winter Offensive, drew protests for its portrayal of lubricious Nazis. (Score another.) And the plays did enough business that the company eventually moved into a spacious Victorian at Adelaide and Bathurst.