In “Kabarecik” by Olga Lipińska
The cabaret proposition of Olga Lipińska, who had been at home in the building of the television at Powstańców Square since its inception, and who was the director of great performances of the Television Theater, brought something completely new.
(…) Jan Kobuszewski said that in “Kabarecik” everything began in the text. He was the basis, and the rest was born in arduous rehearsals and during the recordings. Contrary to Dudek, work here was not a social endeavor. “I would rather call it a socio-political undertaking. We were staunch opponents of what was happening in Poland then, but because there was censorship, it was also a double bottom. And it was a great joy, because cabaret cannot speak directly. , ambiguous “.
Jan Kobuszewski and the famous “Who asked Ruthenian?”
In 1978, Olga Lipińska’s cabaret was taken off the air for several months, because Jan Kobuszewski told a joke about dumplings during the vision. It sounded like: “Who asked Ruthenian?”. “Nobody, they came by themselves.” Six words. The Soviet embassy protested, which saw in the joke an allusion to the presence of Soviet troops in Poland. And she expressed it. The then president of TVP, Maciej Szczepański, about whom many legends circulate, despite being called Bloody, often defended television stars against apparatchiks from the Polish United Workers’ Party. When Olga Lipińska punished him in his office after eating dumplings, he did not understand what the problem was. She explained. So he himself, easing the situation, was to say to those who reported: “Come on, artists are idiots. They don’t know what kind of world they live in.”
(…) There are legends about the requirements of Olga Lipińska to this day. It was clear that she “would not let a shortage”, but to achieve this, she would most likely work a few hours without breaks. Recording, corrections, editing, corrections. She did not let go. It happened that she locked the rehearsal room with the artists inside and that’s the end – we keep trying until we succeed. Thirty-six doubles of one song have gone down in history.
Today she admits that she was addicted to work, but does not see it in terms of tyranny. Proof? “I worked over thirty years with Kobuszewski, Pokora, Fronczewski, Wrzesińska. They endured”.
(…) They were a bit afraid, a bit not. They tried to take her in laughing. “I yelled and they laughed.” At the end of this long-term, but murderous cooperation, Jan Kobuszewski and Wojciech Pokora admitted with relief that “we, old men, were not mentioned anymore, because it was not appropriate”.
He did not come to the rehearsal on Sunday
And she? She openly admits that she loved Janek, adored him. He was allowed more. First of all, to call her Oleśka. And push the boundaries. For example: one day there was an important football game, Poles played. She heard from Kobuszewski: “Tomorrow you won’t do the rehearsal, you won’t be so cruel.” And yet she was cruel, she didn’t cancel, she sat, waited and waited. No one came. As she left the room, she saw a note on the door: “Trial Canceled. Olga.” Janek, to be sure that he would watch the match, apart from the card, he took the trouble and called his friends: “Olesia called me, the attempt was canceled”. She couldn’t be angry with him. She was, after all, “our lady”. She understood his passion for cheering just as she respected the need for faith. Because she was as far away from the Church as possible, and he used to say about himself: “I am a small, poor believer”. But they had no problem with their worldview difference. He just didn’t come to the rehearsal on Sunday, because he went to church, and then, if possible, he kept a holy day.
Hanna Faryna-Paszkiewicz “Kobusz. Jan Kobuszewski from the other side of the stage” Wyd. MANDO.
Once, Olga Lipińska recalls, he hid in a double bass case during a rehearsal. He shut himself up in it. Everyone was looking for him, because he had been there a while ago. (…) Yet another time, when he sang “Farewell to the Ties” in a cabaret, he cut off his own private tie with scissors.
Bent like a pocket knife, but in a cylinder. “Kobuszewski is graphic”
Olga Lipińska admired and used in “Kabarecik” the extraordinary quality of Jan, the awareness of her own body and flexibility. Legs on the head – here you go! Also, torso twists and tricks of hiding a smoking pet in the mouth. Bent into a penknife, but in a cylinder, it flitted between the chairs in the song “Maleńki” with Maryla Rodowicz. While seated, he could reach the box of matches lying on the chair next to him. With my mouth.
Agnieszka Osiecka wrote about his flexibility: “Kobuszewski is graphic. Everywhere there should be posters, paintings and road signs with the character of Kobuszewski in the dance. There should be a series of animated films entitled ”The adventures of a young question mark ‘and the sign should be played by Jan Kobuszewski. The “The Phenomenon of Jan Kobuszewski’s Acting” should be conducted at the theater and film school, because it is acting that contradicts all banal canons. The canons suggest that you shouldn’t redraw, make monkeys, bend in all directions and laugh at your own jokes, and Janek K. loses, bends and does, and yet he is wonderful. “
W Olga Lipińska’s cabaret most of the actors kept their own baptismal names. Miss Basieńka, Miss Krysia (artists, according to the script, mentally detached from reality), Mr. Piotr, Mr. Janeczek and Mr. Wojteczek. Only Turkish was Turkish.
Mr. Janeczek from the trade unions
(…) Each character of “Kabarecik” was different, had a different way of being and speaking. Olga Lipińska: “I write a text differently for Kobuszewski, differently for Gajos. That is why Rewiński spoke the party Newspeak in Kabaret, and Fronczewski – the language of cabotin”. Mr. Janeczek, chairman of the trade unions, was maneuvering. He turned up, he cried with despair, he grumbled at the stupidity of Miss Basieńka, he did not regret the good word of the management and sometimes he supposedly went to cooperate with the Turkish (…).
Olga Lipińska’s cabaret left behind numerous sayings by the author, most often by the author herself: “rotary starvation”, “who is carrying it?”, “Should I play?”, “Director” and, of course, the term “Mr. B’s officials” from the wise song of Magda Czapińska.
And so privately, already out of roles? Olga Lipińska: “It was a good team, they all liked each other. He defended one another if I shouted at someone, most often Janek Kobuszewski came to explain to his colleague.» Oleśka – he said to me – you know, he is indisposed today, he had his brother-in-law’s birthday yesterday « One day, when Gajos did not master the text, they informed me that the Turkish text had drowned in a jumble. Janek read it for him, saying that this was definitely what Mr. Turecki wanted to say. Their solidarity sometimes led me to a shoemaker’s passion. ” But she took their opinion into account, with the proposed changes. “I often took their suggestions into account, and they played jokes on me, so to speak. First, Janek Kobuszewski took the text I had written and read it in such a way that I thought I would kill him or commit suicide.» This is good *** «, he judged briefly. Then, of course, everyone laughed, I was nervous and I threw papers on the floor. When something was wrong, I always said,” Throw it out! “”.
The figure of Mr. Janeczek, like the others, was strongly “defined”. His showpiece under the wings of Olga Lipińska was a shabby top hat, and in other scenes a tousled and crooked wig, tight jacket with skimpy sleeves and too short trouser legs. They perfectly emphasized the actor’s conditions, already exaggerated by nature. “Couldn’t you put on something better, in your size? Those too short sleeves …”, Jan’s mother asked privately and very seriously.
“I’m no longer interested in it, because you can say anything”
(…) Jan Kobuszewski did not appear on television in the years 1981-1989. And then, after 1990, despite the return of Olga Lipińska’s cabaret, he was no longer a star in it. Sometimes he would be persuaded to take part in an episode, but more willingly, from the position of his own armchair at home, he watched the next generation perform. “This cabaret is still good, but I lost interest in it due to the fact that you can say everything directly. If I were to say that censorship was necessary for anything at all, it was for literary cabaret. Only for that.”
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The published fragment comes from the book by Hanna Faryna-Paszkiewicz “Kobusz. Jan Kobuszewski from the other side of the stage” (MANDO Publishing House).
Date Created: Yesterday, 22:36
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