Actress with a claw. Anna Chodakowska turns 70

The beginnings of Chodakowska in 1973 were a real shock. The inauguration of Teatr Mały, the new scene of the National Theater of the capital, is directed by Adam Hanuszkiewicz, on the poster of Sophocles' Antygon and in the title role she's studied at the Warsaw College of Dramatic Arts. Anyone waiting for an academic version and staging of the old tragedy must have felt disappointed because Antigonus Chodakowska was on the opposite side to similar expectations. In jeans and black shirt, with a scream on the lips – emotions alone. The performance of the place has become a success, and all the actress talked about Warsaw. Not always on a positive note – purists have been outraged by the plebiscian heroine, claiming that this approach to heroin reading simply does not fit the national scene. Director Hanuszkiewicz rubs his hands and offers to discover his discovery.

Chodakowska emphasizes that Antygonia owes him everything. Thanks to her, she remained in the profession, and at the National Theater she played many important roles, including Bianca in "White Marriage" by Tadeusz Różec in the staging of Tadeusz Minec, as well as the titles in the performances from Hanuszkiewicz, "Snie Srebrnym Salomei" and "Balladyna" (the famous with hondas) by Juliusz Słowacki. This is the first director on the way to the actress, who drew attention to his extraordinary sensitivity, allowed to play "with a claw", he supported his temperament. Years later, in 1998, they found themselves at work at the National Theater, when Hanuszkiewicz directed August Strindberg's "Dance of Death" there. The main role was played by himself, and then he had old "his" actors – Chodakowska and Krzysztof Kolberger.

Anna Chodakowska has always made difficult and unobvious choices. For many years, first at Studio Studio in Warsaw, and again on the national scene, she became one of the icons of Jerzy Grzegorzewski 's performances. She particularly appreciated her sense of form and art, and was ready to take on the riskiest challenges. She enjoyed the operetta convention in "The lips are silent, the soul sings" based on Franz Lehar's motifs, she was ironic, exaggerated Desdemona in "Four Parallel Comedies", and later on National, with Grzegorzewski, she visited the worlds of James Joyce "New Bloomusalem"), Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz ("Halka Spinoza") and Wyspiański ("Night of November", "Wesele") Often unrecognizable in his roles is precisely with Grzegorzewski that she finds a lack of literality and poetry. Always a little crazy and always a sense of brilliant humor You can still see her in "Duszyczka" according to Różewicz – the last piece of Grzegorzewski, still present in the national repertoire.

In Samuel Beckett's "Comedy", directed by Antoni Libera at Studio Theater, she played her neck immersed in a huge sarcophagus, first having her head, face and hair. eyes. She rejected the typical vanity of the actors, entering the aesthetic of Leszek Mądzik without any inhibition. The creator of Lublin Plastic Stage KUL in his productions operates willingly with darkness and diffused light. He also did not abandon that in the 1995 film at Teatr im. Osterwa in Lublin "Antygonie", and Chodakowska returned to his first role. Only now she has played quite differently, in full awareness of everything that happened to her on the road to the theater.

Always looking for something more than just workshop tasks. She has always said that she was experimenting with a real catharsis playing the title role in Christa Wolf's "Kasandra" in the staging of Krzysztof Bukowski in Studio (1991). Her heroine, her head shaved almost to her skin, was deeply troubling in her despair and in the premonition of defeat that would surprise her and her loved ones. It was written about Chodakowska as Kasandra, that everything was "desperation and pain" and he was avidly underlined how much the actress had changed, what restraint she had gained since her debut, Antygona angry.

Many associate Chodakowska with the poetry of Edward Stachura. As early as the 1980s, she played and sang her "Masse du Voyageur", later recorded on the album. She sang with guitarist Roman Ziemiański in a loud voice that has changed color over the years. It became darker, raspier and more flexible as it contained a trace of the owner's artistic journey. Actresses with a large scale of possibilities, continuing in the profession, always treat it as a non-forced, but unrealized choice – playing too little and not on the scale of possibilities.

What he can do, he still shows it, even at the National Theater Studio stage, "The Drunken Piano" with the songs of Tom Waits. It's fantastic when in old clothes and shoes with big corners singing the words of an American artist on all the dirt and misery of this world. And know that she would like more, even at the movies, for years that does not take advantage of her opportunities.

On July 20, Anna Chodakowska celebrates her 70th birthday, which seems to her a monstrous absurdity for her admirers and friends. He has the same gleam in his eyes, the same lack of humility in his heart and in his gestures of punishment. He cares for needy animals, she has several cats at home. It does not hide the closest right of political opinions. And he is constantly thinking of new roles, for example in the Heiner Mueller Quartet, because he has an idea for a long time. He will play the Countess of Laclosa known at the end of his life, completely devoid of illusions. There is something to expect.