Pomme Frites (or just Pomme), a red-nosed clown, wants to be Anne of Green Gables. He has some things in common with her — like his temper — but for some reason people like Anne better.
Pomme and his companion, ’Restes, also a clown, were entertainers on a cruise ship before it was wrecked. Adventures abound while they’re stranded on an island — often with Pomme having to rescue ’Restes — but Pomme is also dealing with some existential crises: Why can’t he be Anne? And should he give up and just resign himself to staying on the island?
What will happen to our heroes?
All will be revealed in A Company of Fools’s upcoming production Pomme and ’Restes: Shipwrecked! On the Tempestuous Lost Island of Never.
Pomme and ’Restes got up to some hijinks several years ago in a play called A Midwinter’s Dream Tale. The show was such a success that the Great Canadian Theatre Company asked A Company of Fools to write a new Pomme and ’Restes play for the upcoming holiday season.
The show’s humour will appeal to people of all ages, but Pomme and ’Restes’s lack of gender-related hang-ups should send a particularly important message to children.
“’Restes is a boy, or at least he thinks he’s a boy. And Pomme always wears a skirt and believes that at heart he’s a little girl,” says Margo MacDonald, who plays ’Restes. “This is the nature of clowns. They have the ability to exist without judgment.”
“Sometimes at student matinees, children will be really surprised when I take the costume off. They’re like, ‘Wait a minute, you’re a girl?’ and I say, ‘I’m a girl, but ’Restes is a boy.’ And they say, ‘How can he be a boy if you’re a girl?’ and I say, ‘Well, he believes he’s a boy, so does it matter?’ They often think about that and decide it doesn’t matter.”
Pomme and ’Restes: Shipwrecked! On the Tempestuous Lost Island of Never
Runs until Sun, Dec 14
Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre
1233 Wellington St W
fools.ca
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