Imaginary interview with Robert Lamoureux
by Charactorium · Robert Lamoureux (1920 — 2011) · Performing Arts · 6 min read
One autumn evening, backstage at a Parisian theater, the man packs away his hunting rifle — the one from the sketch, of course — into a worn velvet case. Robert Lamoureux wears an impeccable suit and his eyes smile before his mouth does. Between rehearsals, he agrees to tell how a duck, a debacle, and a horse shaped an entire life on stage.
—How could a simple hunting monologue transform you into a star overnight?
I didn't believe it myself. In the late 1940s, in a Paris cabaret, I go on stage with this story of a hunter who goes duck hunting and everything goes wrong — the dog, the gun, the pond, his dignity. The secret wasn't in the weapon, believe me, the hunting rifle only serves to delay the laughter. It was all in the rhythm of the story, in the silences that the cabaret microphone picked up like embers. The audience laughed before the punchline, because they saw disaster coming and could do nothing. The next day, people stopped me in the street. I performed The Duck Hunt my whole life; a man is sometimes condemned to his first success, and mine had feathers.
The rifle only serves to delay the laughter; it's all in the silence before the punchline.
—What, in your opinion, kept an entire audience hanging on a single man on stage?
Solitude, sir. The monologist is alone, and that solitude is his weapon. In the post-war music hall, we had no lavish sets, no extended orchestra: we had a voice and a microphone. I looked at the front row, listened to the audience breathe, and played with that breath like a fisherman with his line. One night the laughter came three seconds early, I cut it short; another night it lagged, I stretched the silence to insolence. It's a dialogue without a reply from the other side, except laughter. That's why I never fixed a text: The Duck Hunt was never the same two nights in a row, because the audience changed every night.
The monologist is alone, and that solitude is his weapon.
—Do you remember the moment you decided to go behind the camera to tell the story of the 1940 debacle?
1973. I had laughed enough on the boards, I wanted to tell something I had seen with my own twenty-year-old eyes: France collapsing in June 1940, the clogged roads, the army retreating without understanding. So I wrote Where Has the 7th Company Gone? and directed it myself. My three rascals — Chaudard, Pithivier, and Tassin — are lost behind German lines, and I wanted them neither heroes nor cowards: ordinary Frenchmen who mostly want to go home. I was criticized for laughing at defeat. But you can mourn a rout and smile at the men who go through it. The success was such that it required two sequels.
You can mourn a rout and smile at the men who go through it.
—Going from cabaret to directing a comedic war film, wasn't that a dizzying leap?
Dizzying, no; natural, yes. Deep down, filming the 7th Company was still setting up gags, except my auditorium was inside a camera lens instead of a microphone. I set the rhythm of laughter frame by frame the way I set it night after night at the cabaret. Military farce has its rules: the 1940 uniform, the slightly oversized helmet, the falling trousers — the costume does half the comedy, because it dresses a little man in big History. I directed my actors like conducting an orchestra of blunders. After We've Found the 7th Company in 1975 and the third installment in 1977, I had completed a trilogy I never premeditated — ducks, it seems, take you far.
The costume does half the comedy: it dresses a little man in big History.
—What does that youth marked by the Compulsory Work Service in Germany mean to you?
A scar you don't show but that keeps you warm. I was just over twenty when I was requisitioned for the STO and sent to work in Germany. An entire generation born around 1920 left its carefree youth there; we left as boys, came back something else. I didn't make it a drama on stage — it wasn't my register — but when later I told the story of the 1940 debacle and soldiers lost far from home, believe me, I knew from the inside what it means to be a little Frenchman swept up by too big a History. Laughter is often a polite way to refuse to cry for yourself.
Laughter is a polite way to refuse to cry for yourself.
—How did that war experience subtly nourish your author's perspective?
It taught me to be wary of big words. When you've seen the debacle, the occupation, young men sent to the STO, you understand that History doesn't just play out among generals but among the cold and hungry foot soldier. That's why my soldiers of the 7th Company don't discourse: they look for food, sleep, survival. I kept from those years 1943 and Germany a taste for modest characters, those never put on the posters of History. The grand fresco is not my thing. I prefer the man crossing the storm wondering mainly where his comrades — and his helmet — have gone.
History plays out less among generals than among the cold and hungry foot soldier.
—You are described as a one-man band of entertainment: author, actor, director. How did you wear all these hats at once?
Out of necessity and greed. I started by writing my own monologues, simply because no one else wrote them for me. From there to plays was just a step: in 1957, I wrote and starred in The Brunette in Question, a boulevard theatre comedy for major Parisian theaters. In the morning, I was hunched over my manuscript, crossing out a word that rang false; in the afternoon, I staged the production; in the evening, I took the stage to defend what I had written. Some find that presumptuous. I say a comedian knows better than anyone exactly where to place the comma that will make people laugh. The comma, in theater, is a silence — and silence is my trade.
A comedian knows better than anyone where to place the comma that will make people laugh.
—Why did you insist on writing your own plays rather than just performing them?
Because a text you haven't written is a borrowed suit: it fits almost well, but never quite. Boulevard theatre, with its misunderstandings and slamming doors, is a clockmaker's mechanism — one misplaced gear and the whole play derails. When I held my manuscript, I could cut to the quick, try a line that same evening and correct it the next day based on the audience's laughter. A comedy like The Brunette in Question was thus honed performance after performance. I like to think that writing, acting, and directing are not three trades, but one, seen under three lights. Boulevard doesn't forgive approximations: you make people laugh to the second, or you don't make them laugh at all.
A text you haven't written is a borrowed suit: it fits almost well, never quite.
—Away from the spotlight, you were known as a dressage rider. What did you seek with horses?
The opposite of cabaret: silence without an audience. On stage, everything is for the auditorium; in the saddle, for dressage, there is only the horse and you, and he never laughs to please. I put the same seriousness into it as into my profession — to the point of writing works on equestrian art, me who was only seen in suit and tie under the stage lights. Dressage requires exactly what a monologue requires: the right rhythm, restraint, authority without brutality. You think you lead the horse, you accompany it; you think you lead an audience, it carries you. I spent many mornings on horseback before rehearsals, and I believe my mount taught me patience better than any theater director.
In the saddle, there is only the horse and you — and he never laughs to please.
—What would you say this equestrian passion taught you about your art of the stage?
That you command nothing by force. Dressage taught me that the most beautiful figure comes from a light hand: too much bridle, the horse resists; too much insistence on a gag, the audience shuts down. You must suggest, let it come, never pull laughter by force like you don't pull a horse on the bit. I often rode in the morning, before meeting my actors or film sets in the afternoon, and this equestrian discipline fed the rest. Restraint, you see, is the great secret of both arts: on a track as on a stage, he who shows the least gets the most. I cultivated that away from the posters, as an obscure rider prouder of his dressage routines than of his ducks.
The most beautiful figure comes from a light hand: you don't pull laughter on the bit.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Robert Lamoureux's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.