From couples coach to deconstructed husband: Anne Roumanoff shares her "Life Experience" in Toulon

Monday evening in Paris, she naturally mentioned Brigitte's "slap" to Emmanuel... That's how Anne Roumanoff is: mixing in at the end of the show (20 minutes), a part of the news that has been knocking on the door in recent days. Not surprising when we know how much this one-woman show, L'Expérience de la vie , tested in 2023 in the Gulf of Saint-Tropez - "it was very nice, there are more unpleasant places" confides the artist, a smile in her voice on the phone -, is anchored in today's world.

Life Experience is a cross between stand-up and role-playing, as you play a gallery of characters...

It's true that I talk about romantic relationships as well as self-checkouts in supermarkets, the automation of the postal service at airports, social networks... Like I play the butcher whose daughter is woke, whose husband is deconstructed and whose son is gay... And then, I also talk about a counselor who explains how we should tell fairy tales to children today, or a relationship coach... I also have the audience do exercises. I teach them how to compliment their partner, for example...

So, how do you go about complimenting your partner?

You have to come see the show! (laughs)

Which character you play is the furthest from you?

I don't actually ask myself the question in those terms. When people say that I do both stand-up and sketches, it's because I bring in characters who are sometimes only there for a few seconds, like the flight attendant... And I really enjoy slipping into the skin of one character and then another. What fascinates me, and that's the point of live performance, is to always dig deeper, improve, and progress in my interpretation. Every day, in terms of the text, I'm going to change little details. And in my interpretation too, I experiment. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't... I performed this show on Sunday and Monday in Paris, and friends who saw it two years ago told me that it was completely different, that it had changed so much.

It is necessarily nourished by your own experience?

Of course, of course, but then I don't like to talk about my life on stage. I take from my life things that I have encountered, people who have annoyed me. But there is also a part of imagination, thank God! (laughs) With everything that I observe, I store. It's like a musician who is nourished by various influences. We store a lot of things, we are in a context. Then, there is a part of creation that can also surprise us in writing.

Your show is deeply rooted in today's society, you say. What surprises you most about the world around us?

Right now, it's surely the crystallization of violence between people, a kind of intolerance to ideas different from one's own. It's intolerance for an opinion different from one's own. And violence all of a sudden, as if people were ultimately incapable of understanding the other's point of view and tolerating it.

What valuable lessons have you learned over the course of your experience as a woman, and as a woman in comedy as well? Because you've had a long career in this field...

I'm not really focused on the past. In the show, I talk about this "it was better before" aspect, and I find this phrase absolutely stupid. It wasn't better before, it was different. And I find that the current era is also exciting because of all the new things it brings: new behaviors, new languages, new ways of doing things. There are some superb things too. And I'm really, really in the present and the future. I'm trying to improve myself, both as a human being and as an artist. Afterwards, am I succeeding? I don't know. I find that's what's interesting when you're on Earth, it's to improve yourself.

And what about the future, for you, how does it look? Because this show has been running for a while now... How does the future look?

(laughs) I'm lucky enough to play my shows for a long time and people even come back to see them a second time... No, I don't know. I'll probably do a new show in a year, but not right away.

Learn more

This Wednesday evening at 8 p.m. at the Palais Neptune in Toulon. 45 euros. Info. toulon-congres-neptune.com