In 1925 part of the company decided to found its own theater: Perskie Oko, which in the history of the interwar cabaret went down as the most important revue theater in the capital.
Private Hemar: artists in uniform
The history of wartime cabarets was documented by the artists who, on almost all fronts of Europe, sought solace in singing and songs that reminded them of better times. Among them were the mobilized artists from Lviv who accompanied the soldiers of General Stanisław Maczek's 1st Armored Division. Marian Hemar, from the outbreak of war, was among the ranks of the Independent Carpathian Rifle Brigade, and he prepared two revues under wartime conditions. One of them, Pamiętaj wnuku, że dziadek był w Tobruku [Remember, grandson, that grandfather was in Tobruk], became a military hit. Hemar continued his cabaret activity in exile in London. Feliks Konarski, on the other hand, embarked on a journey with General Władysław Anders' army to the Middle East. Years later, he recalled the last preparations before the offensive on Monte Cassino:
Despite the arduous journeys and conditions, I willingly went to the troops, perhaps to suppress the guilty feeling that in a day or two, they would go with rifles while we, the actors, almost like clowns, were only there to sweeten their bitter awareness of going into battle and facing death. One of them said to me with a smile, as if sensing my thoughts: 'Mr. friend, not everyone has to die. You, for example, should stay to write about it, because you can do it. Who knows?' Maybe I partly owe Czerwone Maki to him.
In 1946, Fryderyk Jarosy, who had been arrested in occupied Warsaw and imprisoned in a Nazi prison, arrived in the British Isles. After being liberated from the prisoners-of-war camp, he quickly organized the Cyrulik Warszawski [Warsaw Barber] Theater in Brussels. The first recitals were held in the debris-covered capital, and Mieczysław Fogg opened Cafe Fogg in a miraculously spared tenement house on Marszałkowska Street. However, Warsaw artists soon moved to Łódź, where the satirical and entertaining Syrena Theater, led by Jerzy Jurandot, was being created at the Grand Hotel.
'What to play?' Dudek sets the stage in motion
How could the old masters of the szmonces genre be reconciled with the advocates of politically and socially engaged lyrical poetry? Edward Dziewoński Dudek took on this task in the early 1960s. As Izolda Kiec writes, Dudek, utilizing his connections and authority, aimed to revive the old form of literary cabaret but in a completely modern costume. His recipe for cabaret success included good lyrics and the best performers. He invited Jan Kobuszewski, Irena Kwiatkowska, Barbara Rylska, Wiesław Gołas, and Wiesław Michnikowski to collaborate. The main author of the texts was Wojciech Młynarski, who mentioned in his book:
My arrival at Dudek's can be compared to Alice entering Wonderland. Even if I had only come to Dudek and then left after seeing these legends of cabaret acting, I would have been happy. But Dudek, who was then simply Mr. Edward Dziewoński, said when he read my text: 'This needs good music.' And he called Jerzy Wasowski: 'Here we have a very talented boy, the son of Magda Młynarska. Write music for it.' I thought it was a joke
'This was the last real cabaret, the last voice of the pre-war Warsaw' - we read in the book. The last performance took place after 10 years of playing, in 1975.