Jan Nowicki. Portrait of a Friend ebook

Janek through the lens of Anna Kondratowicz-Nowicka

JAN NOWICKI – REBEL? DREAMER? – OUR PATH – DARIUSZ DOMAŃSKI

Janek Nowicki – A rebel? A dreamer? Or perhaps a realist? And seemingly a bit of a cynic and an oppositionist. For me, a man full of life’s passion, from which he knew how to draw both light and shadow. Painfully honest, independent, open to people, with a distance from himself and his profession. A juggler and a mystic. Mysterious, revealing, searching for his place in the realm of art. In the last decade of his life, though in truth much earlier, he discovered literature – for himself and his audience. A patchwork brother, more of a sanguine than a choleric. My idol, from whom my love for theater and acting truly began.

The twilight of the Gierek era, my youth spent in the building on Jagiellońska Street, or as some prefer, Szczepański Square in Krakow, the city where I was born and which for Janek was a theatrical home, though not forever. For he was a citizen of the world, much like one of his later directors – Krzysztof Zanussi. Nowicki’s family life was a fascinating spiral of experiences, full of twists and turns, islands, while his life in art complemented his image of a man who, as he often repeated, received much from life when he left his native Kujawy, his Kowal, which he never truly abandoned. “You can live anywhere, but die where your home is,” he confessed sincerely. For this sincerity and independence shaped his character. He had principles, sensed falsehood, and did not tolerate cowardice.

It is difficult to write about Janek from the perspective of years, with whom I was acquainted for almost 40 years. These were his years of work as an actor who enchanted, provoked, irritated, and debated. In the theater, he dialogued with authors, donned hundreds of masks on his face and personality, and sometimes amused and moved us with his slightly demonic smile, while at other times, he was like a child told to go on stage and recite a poem. He even sang occasionally, or perhaps it was a melodic recitation in his reflective style. He could be reflective, original, unique, captivating. Not only the fairer sex but also the male part of the species homo sapiens was drawn to him. He knew how to befriend both women and men (Anna Szałapak, Piotr Skrzynecki, Jurek Pilch…).

The absence of Janek, as I wrote right after his death, will only be felt over time. His legend will remain among us, whom he served as best he could, without megalomania, self-importance, with a touch of irony, sometimes in a jester’s cap, and other times in his inseparable hat, which over time became his trademark and an attribute of a certain calm and loyalty to people and the props of life that surround us all.

Dariusz Domański, 2024

After the performance, I waited for Jan Nowicki at the gate on Szczepański Square (the entrance for actors and theater staff), a few others were also waiting for Nowicki, who soon appeared in the doorway with a bag over his shoulder. I noticed his smile, approached, said something, and asked for an autograph. He then took out a photo of himself from the bag, already signed, but on the back, he wrote a few words for me. I was happy, my Grand Duke had given me his photo. I regretted not being able to take a picture with him then, but the era of mobile phones was a distant future. That’s how I remembered this first face-to-face meeting with my Grand Duke, whom I was about to portray on the school stage. I don’t know what it was about that performance or what really decided that Wyspiański’s “November Night” became my theatrical bible – a Theatrical University. I read Wyspiański through Nowicki, the entire ensemble, and the excellent music of Zygmunt Konieczny and director Andrzej Wajda. This performance connected us, united us spiritually. Almost 40 years later, Janek wrote a letter on my anniversary and referred to those years when he saw in his imagination “…an 18-year-old boy carrying his costume through the snowy Market Square…”. And I still saw in him Konstanty, playing with his role, when he wrote to me – “But we had such fun in that role, Mr. Darek.”

Our paths crossed from time to time. Our constant base was the Stary Teatr, sometimes its chamber stage, then his apartment on Prądzyńskiego Street, the summer house in Gaj near Krakow, and finally the apartment on Focha Street, opposite the Krakow Błonia. Unfortunately, I never managed to visit him in Kowal. I invited him to various places, to Silesia, to Greater Poland. We met in Warsaw when he had his episode with the Sabat Theater. But what really brought us closer was the book I wrote with Janek in 1995. He long pondered whether he had anything to say, though he always had much to say, as well as to write. He was one of the few actors who could make good use of a pen. He wrote columns, became a sensitive prose writer and a delicate poet. I think there was no other actor who felt so many literary genres so well. All the more, I was aware that writing about him would not be easy. Yet Janek trusted me and even allowed me to include my thoughts in his intriguing reflections, not only about acting.

I visited Janek and Marta, with whom he lived, even several times a week, first on Prądzyńskiego Street (8th or 9th floor?), and later on Focha Street. I won’t forget the amusing situations, like when Jurek Pilch, Janek’s friend, came over once. During the conversation, the glasses, probably from Baczewski, kept filling up. I had a bit of a problem because, with my abstinence, it was hard to keep up, and I had to find ways to avoid this habit. When the gentlemen had their glasses full, and so did I, I subtly turned around and emptied my glass into the flowerpot behind me, which I think held a cactus or a fern. When I met Janek again a few days later, the host, with a slightly worried expression, said, “I don’t know what the hell happened, my flowers wilted.” I felt guilty for contributing to the “death” of Janek Nowicki’s flowers, but in this way, I saved my head and perhaps my liver.

I remember when the day of our book promotion at the "Piwnica Pod Baranami" was approaching. The host, of course, was none other than Piotr Skrzynecki himself, who, while leading the event, at one point looked at me sitting somewhere offstage and said – "Let’s give a round of applause to Mr. Domański for such a beautiful book about Mr. Jan." "He wrote it with such difficulty." Was he perhaps thinking about the wilted flowers in Jan’s room? I’ll never forget how the Piwnica community sang along with the Krakow Philharmonic Choir a piece composed by Zbigniew Preisner to the words of the book’s protagonist. Yes, this is just one of many memories with Janek Nowicki.

Years later, someone sent me a review of our book from "Życie Warszawy," written by Agnieszka Osiecka. She praised the book and the interview I conducted with Janek. I felt a lot of satisfaction because I valued the opinion of such an excellent poet.

I was always grateful to Janek for remaining loyal to the Stary Teatr for so long and for making it his place. Because his brief stay at the theater on Foksal Street was, in truth, a whim of a great actor. Was he truly in his element there, was he happy? When I invited him to a meeting in Nowa Huta, hosting a series of "Portraits of People of Theater, Film, and Stage," I didn’t see the happiness in him that used to be there. Maybe it was age, or perhaps the passage of time. He was such an open-minded person, and I think he had a lot of tolerance, but in friendship, he was always sincere and approached life altruistically. He had gestures of kindness. There was a period in our closeness when I spent pleasant moments with my family, my wife Jola and son Konrad, at his summer house in Gaj near Krakow. "In the green Gaj, the birds sing" – that’s how it was at Janek’s place, a quiet escape from the city’s noise, a garden with tall grass that I mowed, and the first barbecues, which were becoming increasingly popular. It was also a beautiful time, one I remember fondly with Janek.

Konrad was two years old at the time, sitting on the porch immersed in Bakhtin’s book about Dostoevsky’s poetics, which Jan had borrowed years ago from Konrad Swinarski. He never got around to returning it. That’s a joke, of course, because Konrad could only hold the book.

I had the keys to this little house, and I’ll never forget how we drove up to the stylish gate of this modest property, which stood out with its decorations – it was very distinctive, like something out of a theater. I’ve never received keys to anyone’s property before, except for the hospitality in Paris of an extraordinary man and director, and I can say, my friend – Krzysztof Zanussi. We often visited Gaj because it was the closest to Krakow.

Janek Nowicki always appeared somewhere in the pages of my subsequent books, and of course, he couldn’t be missing from the jubilee album about the Stary Teatr. As he jokingly compared Kazimierz Górski’s team to Zygmunt Hübner’s team at the Stary. These were Górski’s and Hübner’s eagles. The critics were amused by Jan’s text, and I was delighted that he contributed such an original piece to my most important book, which in 1997 Jurek Trela presented to Pope John Paul II during his pilgrimage to Poland. Janek attended all the promotions, signed the book at the Odeon bookstore in the Market Square, along with Jan Peszek, Jerzy Bińczycki, Anna Dymna, Iza Olszewska, Jerzy Trela, and Dorota Segda. He recited Tadeusz Śliwiak’s poem "Mój Stary" at "Maska" hosted by Tadzio Huk and Krzysztof Janarek. That’s how he was, always making time. In truth, Janek was my friend, just like Maria Malicka, Zofia Niwińska, Irena Eichlerówna, Aleksandra Śląska, Franek Pieczka, Jurek Trela, Edek Dobrzański, Piotrek Fronczewski, Basia Krafftówna, and Ania Seniuk. There aren’t many people from this great palette of artists whom I can consider my true friends. Janek opens this beautiful list. He attended my name day celebrations at Orląt Lwowskich in my family home. Maria Malicka, Danuta Letka, Zofia Niwińska (Janek debuted alongside her), Edzio Dobrzański, and Tadek Szybowski were there. What name days those were. Extraordinary, with such guests. Our home had already seen many artists, including Ewa Demarczyk, who had visited years before.

Thanks to Janek, I became a fan of one particular performance. I’ve already mentioned how, during a history lesson, Krystyna Zaufal encouraged us, me and my friend Andrzej Przewoźnik, to go see Andrzej Wajda’s production at the Stary Teatr. That’s when I discovered not only this drama but also became interested in the theater of Stanisław Wyspiański. It was 1978, as Prof. Marta Stebnicka wrote in the introduction to my book: "The past is today, just a bit further away." – "…he bought a ticket, sat in the sixth row on the left side. As the action unfolded and the actors performed, suddenly, it’s hard to say how it happened, a love and enchantment with Janek Nowicki’s performance blossomed…". All of this is true, except I didn’t buy a ticket; I was led through the same entrance from Szczepański Square (the actors’ entrance) by one of the actors in the performance. Over the course of three years, until 1981, I can’t recall how many times I saw Janek on stage in that role. It was truly enchanting. I wanted to be like him, and for the first time, I thought about theater school, acting studies. But first, there was the School Drama Theater. Preparations for the school production of "November Night" coincided with a difficult situation in the country. Social unrest, strikes, and eventually martial law didn’t contribute to a good atmosphere, although the themes in Wyspiański’s drama touched on the period of our nation’s captivity, our non-existence, and the struggle for a free Poland. Here, history intruded into life, and we were truly afraid of what tomorrow would bring. Yet, despite the turmoil, we managed to stage "November Night" before martial law was declared. I’ll never forget how we walked with borrowed props from the Stary – the weapons of the Cadets and the spear of Pallas Athena, as well as Łukasiński’s shackles. As we walked through the Small Market Square, a woman suddenly called out, seeing us young "Cadets" – "What’s started?" General Jaruzelski declared martial law two weeks later, but we still staged our school production on November 29, 1981. I remember my excitement, my heart pounding like a hammer, because we had invited not only director Andrzej Wajda but also Janek Nowicki himself to the school. I was fairly convinced they wouldn’t attend the premiere. But they arrived punctually: the dean of PWST, Prof. Edward Dobrzański, Zofia Niwińska, and Jurek Fedorowicz. Our Polish teacher, Danuta Letka, gave the signal by raising her hand – we begin. Janek wasn’t there. After about five minutes, when Pallas Athena’s voice had already sounded from the stage, HE appeared in the doorway – JAN NOWICKI. A whisper spread through the audience – He’s here, he came… I didn’t know until the end of the performance, and it’s good I didn’t, because I would have been even more nervous with the real Grand Duke present. I’ll never forget how he was the first to step onto the stage after thunderous applause, smiling, and received applause from the entire cast. That’s when the bond with Jan Nowicki began, and it lasted until 2022. When Janek promoted his last book at the Town Hall in the Market Square: "Happy Chaos," he held my book in his hands and said: "The Stary Teatr is always young" – "…Trouble came to the theater and took my costume from 'November Night,' because they staged 'November Night' at their school, and he played the Grand Duke – Darek. He knows more about the theater and us actors than we know about ourselves…"

I won’t quote Janek further, so as not to fall into admiration for myself, but these were Jan’s sincere words. After the performance, Nowicki stayed with us and shared his impressions. He saw that I was trying to imitate him, and I remembered what Prof. Aleksander Bardini once told me – "Where imitation begins, true art ends…" – but this was a deliberate task on my part.

Yes, I wanted to imitate him, to act similarly, with what I would call an "Eichler-like" manner, emphasizing every word he spoke. I don’t know how successful I was, but my interpretation was well-received in the amateur theater, even earning a positive review in the monthly magazine "Scena," written by Monika Cisowska.

This was sometime in the second half of the 1990s. My friend Robert Budzyń, a pianist and graduate of the Academy of Music, was composing music for Zbigniew Herbert’s poetry. He knew I was close with Janek Nowicki and asked me if Nowicki could participate in his project. I respected Robert for his musical passion and for being a talented pianist who had participated in the eliminations for the International Chopin Competition. Robert and I agreed that we would visit him in Spytkowice near Zator (incidentally, Ania Seniuk lived there for a while), where he lived. Janek drove up to my house on Orląt Street in Krakow in his white Mercedes, and we set off on this journey, probably the first time we traveled together. Nowicki was a good driver, able to multitask, and we talked mainly about theater the whole way. Unfortunately, the meeting didn’t achieve its intended goal, and Robert later looked for another actor for his project. I mention this because Janek, despite his many commitments in theater, film, and beyond, was open to various acting challenges. This showed that he tried to stay close to people who valued his acting, even though he always said that he treated acting as play, calling it an "unmanly profession." Years later, when he turned to writing books, he openly admitted, without pretension, that "…literature is the most important of the arts…" and regretted not dedicating more time to it.

Sometime in the mid-1990s, I noticed in Janek not so much a decline in his acting skills but a growing pessimism. It wasn’t a sign of aging but rather a sense that he didn’t see himself in the new theatrical reality, though he wasn’t a staunch traditionalist. Still, he respected traditions. At one of the anniversaries at the Theater School, he told me: "Darek, don’t believe it will get better." He was somewhat of a prophet because those later times indeed signaled not just a formal decline but also raised many questions about the future of our theater – where would it go? To what extent would it continue the traditions? Of course, Janek and I were most interested in the path of the Stary Teatr. I think his passion for writing grew steadily, and through it, he sought to connect with the world and people. Acting became secondary; literature occupied his thoughts and mind. However, I believe there would be no Jan Nowicki the writer without his encounters in the theater with Dostoevsky, Kafka, or Wyspiański. When he began writing his first columns for "Scena" and later "Goniec Teatralny," he wanted to share not only his experiences but also his worldview with readers. Janek was always interested in people, their psychology, and their relationship with the world. He sought in literature what he couldn’t find in theater. His literary output is impressive. He is, I emphasize again, the only actor in theater history who so deeply understood and tamed literature, creating it before our eyes. Here, he was a creator, though I believe his acting was more creative than many actors considered outstanding.

Ania made me realize in a conversation that Jan wrote 11 books. It’s a pity that his "Happy Chaos" closed the beautiful chapter of Jan’s literary journey. Janek lived as he wanted – the Creator did not bury any of his talents. Recently, Ania sent me the continuation of "Happy Chaos," published after Janek’s death.

The School of Sports Excellence, my former elementary school in Krakow, celebrated its 20th anniversary. I was invited to the ceremony. They asked if I could bring Janek Nowicki, who, as we know, was a sports enthusiast, not just of football. He was a loyal fan of the Wisła Kraków sports club but also of disciplines like swimming.