She was not only an excellent actress and director, a pioneer of the local puppet theater, but also a devoted social and educational activist, particularly meritorious in the field of work with the blind.
She was born to the Polish independence activist Michał Pempkowski and his wife Maria (née Wolf), a German ballet and revue dancer. She spent her childhood with her grandparents in Dresden, where she was enrolled in a ballet school and a piano conservatory. She continued her education in Toruń, where in 1918 she settled with her parents. At that time, she began attending the local Drama Studio. During the Polish-Bolshevik war, she volunteered for the front as a nurse, she also joined the scouting movement. In 1921, during his visit to Toruń, Marshal Piłsudski himself thanked her and invited her to take a photo with her.
After graduating from high school, Halina Pempkowska took a job at the Pomeranian Voivodeship Office in Toruń. From 1925, she performed on the boards of local theaters. At first, as her son, Henryk Ryszard Żuchowski writes, “she is not a candidate for strictly dramatic roles, her strong weapons are dance, movement, singing and rather a musical repertoire. She has revue rather than dramatic predispositions, the latter of which she will develop brilliantly in the second half of her life. It is worth noting that she was also the creator of choreography for many performances in which she performed. From 1935, she successfully continued her career in Poznań theaters: Letni and Narodowy, and in Operetta. In the meantime, she married Teodor de Lubicz-Żuchowski, a scoutmaster, but the differences in characters and temperaments meant that the marriage ended in divorce after a few years. She remained with her second husband, Józef Kirszke, until his death in 1973.
During the German occupation, she earned her living as a cleaner, then as a checker in an architectural office, and in the meantime also as an usher at the DELI cinema. At the same time, she became involved in activities that had a significant impact on her further professional career - she secretly ran a puppet theater in her own and other "proven" apartments. “Halina senses that this game, although dangerous for her and her family, is a chance for mental balance in the time of occupation. […] – mentions H.R. Żuchowski, who, as a talented teenager, began writing plays for the youngest viewers himself. – More and more children and adults come to the shows […] The team is getting better and better at animating with puppets. Halina exercises in her free time. wants to know the secrets of the doll. […] These exercises and gaining experience will allow her to train puppeteers in the art of animation in her theater after the war.”
Immediately after the war, she became the secretary of the Department of Culture of the Poznań City Hall, but still in 1945 she accepted the proposal to organize the Marionette Theater from scratch, later transformed into the Puppet and Actor Theatre. The staging of "The Forest Singer", a play by her son, went down in history as the first full-length premiere in post-war Poznań. Until 1951, Halina Lubicz was the director of the stage she created, and the following year she moved to the Polish Theater.
At the urging of her husband and son, in the 1954/55 season, she took a job at the Zielona Góra theater (then Teatr Ziemi Lubuska), managed in those years by director Zbigniew Koczanowicz, with whom she played many times on the stage of Toruń's National Theater before the war. Warmly welcomed by employees, after appearing in George Bernard Shaw's comedy "Soldier and Hero" (prem. February 4, 1955), it quickly won the recognition and sympathy of the local audience. From the very beginning, she played very diverse roles, also in terms of interpretation. In "Youth of Fathers" by Boris Gorbatov [prem. May 1, 1955 – dir. Stanisław Milski] "delineated her character with a thick line", and in "Pogotowie hearts" by Kazimierz Barnaś [prem. July 27, 1955 - dir. Stanisław Jaśkiewicz] "went, as it is defined today, into television naturalness". In Moliere's Skapen's Rogues [prem. 20 October 1955 - dir. Leonia Jabłonkówna] created a "colorful episode characteristic of the era", in "Pan Damazy" by Józef Bliziński [prem. February 18, 1956 - dir. Kazimierz Czyński] "an extremely comedic character of Tykalska". She was satisfied with her participation in Eugène Scribe's "Glass of Water" directed by Koczanowicz (premiered on 27 April 1957), where she "played a different role of Anna, a beautiful aristocrat. By the way, she showed on stage how to move in a classical play and how to wear a costume.”
Over the following years, she performed in such important performances as "Summer" by Tadeusz Rittner (premiere 14 June 1959) and "Man from the prompter's booth" by Tadeusz Rittner (premiere 14 January 1961), "Powrot Adama" by Leszek Prorok (prem. 24 June 1961), "Żywot Józefa" (premiered on October 7, 1961) and "Baba-dziwo" (premiered on December 9, 1967 - all dir. Maria Straszewska), Schiller's "Fiesco, or the Conspiracy in Genoa" (premiered on February 6, 1967) 1960) and "Elektra" by Sophocles (premiere 4 June 1960 - both directed by Jerzy Zegalski), "Ocalenie" by Irena Kubicka and Alicja Zatrybówna (premiered 18 February 1961 - dir. Marek Okopiński), "Grzech" by Stefan Żeromski (prem. 18 November 1961 – directed by Tadeusz Mroczek), "Portrait" by Jan Paweł Gawlik (premiere 20 January 1962), "November Thing" by Ernest Bryll (premiere 7 February 1969) and "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (premiere 22 May 1971 – all directed by Jerzy Hoffmann), "Physicists" by Friedrich Dürrenmatt (premiered on April 23, 1966 - dir. Andrzej Makarewicz), "Bolesław the Bold" by Stanisław Wyspiański (premiered on December 9, 1966) and "Skalmierzanka" by Jan Nepomucen Kamiński (prem. 19 February 1967 – both dir. Zbigniew Stok), "Blizzard" by Leonid Leonow (premiered on April 23, 1970 - dir. Teresa Żukowska). She appeared on stage for the last time in Alexei Arbuzov's play This Nice Old House (premiere: 29 October 1972 - dir. Danuta Jagła).
In October 1962, on her initiative, the Puppet Stage was established in Zielona Góra, which received the name "Cudaczek" after a plebiscite organized among children. After the inaugural premiere of "Janka Wędrowniczka" (6 October 1962), "Aunt Halina" won the hearts of the youngest viewers many times, staging such fairy-tale performances as "Kozalinka" (premiere 11 April 1963, version II - premiere 18 December 1971), " Bird's milk" (premiered on October 19, 1963) and "The Mystery of the Old Willow" (premiered on January 20, 1968). As she herself explained, in this theater “everyone had to be educators, not only the actors, but also the usher who let the children in and the driver who took the children to the theater – the employees were specially trained for this purpose. Thus, the role of the theater did not end when the puppet was put back in the box.
During this period, she played one of her dream roles - the role of Mother in Słowacki's "Balladyna" (premiere 10 November 1963 - dir. Bohdan Czechak):
She has been waiting for it for many years – explains H.R. Zuchowski. – […] This time dreams come true. She plays Mother in contrast. In the first act, she is a coarse, sometimes cunning mother who wants to marry both her daughters. In the second part, as a blind woman, she leads the role "inside". It is interesting to pass on the disability by the actress. It always annoyed her when artists playing the blind demonstrated their blindness and used their arms and legs to penetrate the terrain. Her message of the character's lack of eyes is more about her staticity and minimal movement at most, and this, combined with her calmness, makes the role more tragic.
The actress has long been wholeheartedly involved in the activities of the Association of the Blind, taking care of, among others, artistic groups composed of people affected by this disability. As mentioned by H.R. Żuchowski, “in September 1953, a letter arrives which is a turning point in her biography. A letter from the village of Bogaczów near Zielona Góra from a blind man in his twenties. […] A young man, Michał Kaziów, who lost his eyesight and hands as a soldier, writes to the Poznań union that he is interested in radio and art.” Halina Lubicz “stood over her head so that he could start his education in a regular high school (that one day he would get a PhD, no one dreamed of at that time). He lived with us. And my mother became our common mother.
Małgorzata Czerwińska was also among her charges:
[Halina Lubicz] taught Braille, everyday activities, and spatial orientation. […] We know her from rehabilitation courses, camps, trips, meetings with authors and completely private ones. She arranged bouquets of wildflowers with us. She revealed the beauty of nature to us with colorful stories. She paid attention to personal culture and savoir-vivre principles. She sensitized to the richness of the native language. At the age of 70, she taught the blind to swim. She made high demands on us, claiming that we would not be pushed to the margins of life only if we turned out to be better than the seers in many areas. […]
By training the blind in the art of using the voice, she herself became known as a great director and radio actress. In 1976, she received the main prize at the National Review of Radio Dramas for the role of Mother in Jerzy Pilichowski's "All My Hope" radio play. This is one of the many awards she has won in various fields of her artistic and social activity. For her merits in the field of puppet theater she received the UNIMA Honorary Diploma. She was the owner of Lubuska Cultural Award of the first degree, Cultural Award "Nadodrza", Honorary Badge for Merits for Zielona Góra and Knight's Cross of Polonia Restituta. She also received the titles of Meritorious Citizen of Zielona Góra and Distinguished Activist of the Polish Association of the Blind. She did not attach much importance to all these decorations - with the exception of the Order of the Smile, awarded by the votes of the children's audience.
Many years later, Robert Czechowski, director of LT, emphasizes: “I am the son of puppeteers, so what Halina Lubicz did was of particular importance to me. I know how much a well-made show means to a child. […] Glory to her and great respect for all her activity. Please believe me that the spirit of Ms. Halina can be felt within these walls, it is still present here”.
Sources:
P. Nijaki, „Duch Haliny Lubicz jest tu dalej obecny”, „Gazeta Lubuska” 2015, nr 203.
L.J. Welker, „Z wielkim sercem do innych ludzi”, „Nowości: Gazeta Pomorza i Kujaw” 2006, nr 110.
H.R. Żuchowski, „Opowieść o niepowtarzalnym życiu Haliny Lubicz”, Lublin 2005.
„XV lat Sceny Lalkowej Lubuskiego Teatru w Zielonej Górze”, red. E. Moroń i I. Dragan, Zielona Góra 1977.
Photo: Tadeusz Ambroż, Czesław Łuniewicz, materiały LT
(oprac. pp)
