In 1958, she graduated from the Acting Faculty of the Public Academy of Theatre in Kraków. She performed at the Zagłębie Theatre in Sosnowiec (1958-1959), Stefan Żeromski Theatre in Kielce-Radom (1959-1962) and the Ludowy Theatre in Nowa Huta (1962-1970). Since 1970, she has been associated with the Warsaw scene. In the years 1970-1972, she was a part of the Klasyczny Theatre group. Since 1972, she has been an actress at the Studio Theatre; she also runs Irena Jun's One Person Theatre and is a lecturer at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw.
Jun made her debut in 1957 in the role of Maryna in Stanisław Wyspiański's The Wedding directed by Wacław Nowakowski at the Zagłębie Theatre in Sosnowiec, where a year later she appeared in the role of Sonia in Włodzimierz Dychawicki’s and Michał Słobodskoj’s Pozwólcie mi Zmartwychwstać [Let Me Get Resurrected] directed by Tadeusz Przystawski.
At the Żeromski Theatre she played Korzuchina in Mikhail Bulgakov's The Escape directed by Halina Gryglaszewska (1959) and the titular role in Juliusz Słowacki’s Balladyna directed by Jadwiga Marso (1960). At the Ludowy Theatre in Kraków, she collaborated with many interesting directors and came into contact with various theatre styles. She was Helena in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, staged by Lidia Zamkow (1963) and Megera in George Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion directed by Zbigniew Kopalko (1963). On the Nowa Huta stage, Jun began working with Józef Szajna. She played in his Kraków plays: The Lady/Hysteric in Włodzimierz Majakowski's Misterium Buffo (1965) and Frieda in Franz Kafka's The Castle (1966).
She also appeared in productions by Irena Babel, and was Elwira in Aleksander Fredro's Husband and Wife (1968) and Carl Goldoni's Mistress of the Inn (1969). In Bogdan Hussakowski's plays, she played Joanna in Jean Anouilh's The Lark (1966), Rosa in Goldoni's The Venetian Twins (1967) and Bianca in Shakespeare's Othello (1969). One of her most interesting roles prepared in Kraków was Iphigenia in Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Iphigenia in Tauris, staged by Izabella Cywińska (1967). In creating the character of the heroine entangled in a tragic conflict, Jun referred to ancient theatrical traditions. Elżbieta Morawiec wrote in Życie Literackie:
[...] she moved from soft lyricism to the high notes of tragedy; her face resembled the ancient tragedy mask.
1967, No. 818
At the Studio Theatre, Jun continued her collaboration with Józef Szajna, then head of the Warsaw stage. She performed in his most important plays: Witkacy (1972), Replika IV (1973) and Dante (1974). At the same time, she could be seen performing in a more traditional repertoire. She made a guest appearance at the Polish Theatre in Bydgoszcz as Martha in Edward Albee's Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? directed by Magdalena Bączewska (1976). In this famous slice-of-life play from the early 1960s, Jun gave her character an almost tragic dimension. In the following seasons, Jun played in subsequent productions directed by and based on Szajna's scripts, this time as Dulcinea in Cervantes (1976) and The Mother in Majakowski (1978).
Participation in Szajna's plays, which were metaphorical visual performances, required the actors to submit themselves to the specific logic of the performances. Here, they acted primarily as visual signifiers. For example, according to Witold Wandurski (1978), in Death on a Pear Tree, they were subjected to biomechanical actions, which, above all, made use of the physical expression of the actor. Jun, in the role of Death, was a perfect fit for this kind of theatre. Krzysztof Miklaszewski wrote the following about the actress’ performance:
Only Irena Jun was able to win over the inner tension of the double-faced Death: the missions of salvation and destruction. The rest of the characters, meant to act in line with the established stereotypes of movement and image, are not able to endure the restriction imposed on them.
Teatr 1979, no. 6
The reviewer of Słowo Powszechne added:
Irena Jun’s role as Death is a great achievement. [...] The artist treated the sinister and fascinating character with faithfulness to the text. It is a personified, human-like Death, a Death who helps to cross the threshold of eternity, dangerous but also compassionate.
For Jun, the 1980s was an encounter with Jerzy Grzegorzewski’s theatre. She was Warda in his play The Screens based on Jean Genet (1982), The Mother in Tadeusz Różewicz's The Trap (1985), and she also played in Grzegorzewski's play Tak Zwana Ludzkość w Obłędzie [So-Called Humanity in Madness] (1987). In the same decade, she performed outstanding roles in productions based on texts by Samuel Beckett, directed by Antoni Libera. She played Woman 2 in Play (1985) and Nell in Endgame (1986).
Her greatest achievements were three Beckett monologues: Not I, Footfalls, Rockaby directed by Libera in 1985. In Not I, the stage lights showed only her mouth talking in darkness Her lips told the story of an old woman who suddenly started monologuing. In Footfalls, Jun, in the role of May, moved on a narrowly lit strip of the floor, telling the events of her life from fragments of the play. Finally, in Rockaby, as an old woman in a rocking chair, she presented four sequences, four days from the life of her heroine. Each of the plays was only several minutes long. Libera constructed them carefully following Beckett's instructions and the actress had to submit to these unusual theatrical rules. Elżbieta Baniewicz commented in Teatr (1986, No 4):
I think that staging this author in the way it happened at Studio Theatre is of great importance, especially pragmatic importance, to the profession. Performing his plays in the theatre is simultaneously a test of purely professional values. The wonderful acting of Irena Jun, this combination of great artistic discipline with absolute perfection of performance becomes a show of professional mastery, something of intrinsic value, a role model. How many actresses can perform the part of the monologue of the mouth at this level of purely technical skill?
In 1988, Jun performed another monodrama, this time transforming Tadeusz Różewicz's drama The Old Lady Sits Waiting. The play was directed by Marek Chojnacki. Once again, according to Szczawińska, Jun confirmed that she is a true wordsmith.
From the beginning, clear recitation gradually increases its dynamics – and, regardless of this, it increases the richness of expression. At the end of the monodrama, the words calm down, as if decreasing, leading to closure. [...] However, it is also worth noting how the artist senses the content of art and how she translates it into the rhythms and colours of her phonetics. How individual words or even sounds, belonging simultaneously and continuously to the same landscape of her language, can be distinguished.
Słowo Powszechne 1988, no. 244
In 1992, the actress played Mary in Józef Szajna’s Dante and The Mother in Lautremont’s Dreams According to ‘The Songs of Maldoror’ directed by Mariusz Treliński (1992). In 1993, she was The Artist’s Mother in Stasys Eidrigevicius’ original play White Deer and the Heavenly Lady in the play Fallen Angels with the script and direction by Michael Hackett. In the same year, she became Magdalena in Eugene Ionesco’s Victims of Duty directed by Ewa Bułhak. This time, as Aleksandra Rembowska emphasised, the actress:
[…] showed off her comedy skills, appearing to the audience in ever new incarnations of the ruthless flirt, a bit cheesy and pretentious in behaviour. She has created a grotesque portrait of a limited housewife in curlers and bathrobe.
Teatr 1994, no. 3
She was Queen Maab in Helmut Kajzar's Samoobrona [Self-Defence] directed by Marcin Jarnuszkiewicz (1997). She also appeared in Danił Chamrs’ Bam directed by Oskaras Koršunovas (1998).
In 1997 Jun, together with director Ewa Bułhak, co-created the play Yourcenar based on Hadrian's Memoirs and fragments of interviews with the writer at the Rozrywki Theatre in Chorzów. Jun played two roles – that of the writer Marguerite Yourcenar and the Roman Emperor, Hadrian. In a review for Dziennik Zachodni, Henryka Wach-Malicka wrote:
The spectacle gives her another chance to show what the text is and how many truths can be told, within an hour, to an attentive listener [...]. Her Hadrian has a powerful will to power [...] but also shows an incredible softness when he talks about his love for Antinous. The parts of the play, when she talks about despair after the death of the young man, are amongst the most beautiful. The figure of Marguerite, on the other hand, is equipped by Jun with feminine warmth and, above all, with aloofness with which she talks about her achievements and human history.
1997, no. 274
In the 1990s, the artist directed numerous plays. These were mostly intimate evenings devoted to great Polish poetry: Ballads and Romances by Adam Mickiewicz (Współczesny Theatre in Szczecin, 1995), Pan Tadeusz (Wilam Horzyca Theatre in Toruń, 1998), Dziady: Part II (Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin, 1999).
In the following seasons, Jun also prepared, amongst others, Alexander Fredro’s Maidens’ Vows (Leon Kruczkowski’s Lubuski Theatre in Zielona Góra, 2001, Nowy Theatre in Zabrze, 2001) and Tristan and Isolde based on Joseph Bedier (Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin, 2003). She directed and played at the Studio Theatre: Dinner at Countess Pavahoke's by Witold Gombrowicz (2004) and The History of Philosophy, Highlander Style based on texts by Father Józef Tischner for a script prepared together with her stage partner Wiesław Komasa (2005). In the Studio Theatre she also prepared a poetic evening, Sunset in Milanówek, based on the motifs of Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz's works (2006) and the Polish Pastorals programme (2006).
The actress’s next theatrical roles were Wernyhora in Stanisław Wyspiański's The Wedding directed by Anna Augustynowicz (2007, Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin) and Paramatka in Obrock – a play staged by Bartosz Zaczykiewicz based on Mother by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (2008, Studio Theatre in Warsaw). In Witkacy's text, cut and condensed by the director, Jun played together with Jarosław Gajewski. Janusz Majcherek wrote of the performance in Gazeta Wyborcza.
The duo of Irena Jun and Jarosław Gajewski absorbs the attention completely [...] To this day, in the Studio Theatre’s paint shop, the voice of Irena Jun, masterfully reciting Beckett’s monologues in Antoni Libera’s unforgettable plays from the 1980s, can still be heard. Gajewski also played in Beckett's plays and I think that his gift of formal acting and his exaggerated technique worked out perfectly there. It is not surprising that Jun and Gajewski, having Beckett, so to speak, in their head and in their bodies, took the structure of his plays and applied it to Witkacy's text. The risk was significant, but the result was very much worthwhile.
Stołeczna, 2009, No. 26
In 2009, Jun staged Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz at the Wanda Siemaszkowa Theatre in Rzeszów. Maciej Doryk wrote the following about the play:
Irena Jun and the Rzeszów theatre team have managed to create a play which shows that even such a great work as ‘Pan Tadeusz’ can simply be played with. Theatre gives such an opportunity, it allows it. The stage is a million perspectives, ideas and alternatives. [...] Irena Jun constructed an image full of energy, dynamic and holding in suspense. What's more, thanks to the wonderful actors, the absurdity, comedy and grotesque have been delicately grazed. We managed to touch something more than the seriousness that is inherent in classical works.
Dziennik Teatralny Rzeszów, 09.11.2009
The actress then played in Hermann Broch's The Spell directed by Marek Fiedor (Studio Theatre in Warsaw, 2010) and Bożena Keff's A Piece on Mother and Fatherland directed by Marcin Liber (Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin, 2010), for which the artists were awarded during the Premiere Festival in Bydgoszcz. In Kameralny Theatre in Szczecin she directed Juliusz Słowacki's Beniowski (2011).
In 2011, in Irena Jun's One Person Poetry Theatre, the artist staged a performance entitled To Miłosz, a monodrama, which is a trip through the life and work of Czesław Miłosz. She also played in productions by Grzegorz Wiśniewski (Joseph and Mary, 2011), Agnieszka Glińska (Cherry Orchard, 2013) and Ewa Piotrowska (Don Juan, 2015).
In 2014, Irena Jun returned to the classics, exhibiting Alexander Pushkin's Onegin, translated by Julian Tuwim. Ewa Uniejewska wrote:
Pushkin’s subtle strophes, overloaded with expression, could sound boring, deathly boring [...] That is why Irena Jun, the director of the play, came up with a different formula, simultaneously demanding for the actors and grateful to the audience. Artists with a sensitivity to the text, to all its colours and shapes, did not fully identify themselves with their characters but rather spoke on their behalf, presented their story, addressing the viewer directly. They sketched their feelings discreetly, with a sense of measure and elegance, perfectly sensing the nuances of an intelligent but also humorous adaptation of the Russian poem. It was a tying arrangement – Jun untied the poem using theatre but also brought it back to the theatre.
Teatralny.pl, 12 May 2014
In 2018, she appeared on the stage of Studio Theatre in the plays Zwierzoczłekoupiory directed by Michał Walczak and Demons directed by Natalia Korczakowska. A year later, she played in the monodrama Women Behind the Wall (about the 17th-century nuns of the Barefoot Carmelites) in the Upper Silesian Węglin Cultural Centre.
Irena Jun also appeared in over a dozen Television Theatre productions. She played Ina in Alexei Arbuzov’s Evening Light directed by Jan Kulczyński (1975) and Sister Klara in Władysław Terlecki's Mateczka directed by Stanisław Różewicz (1995). She also played in Antoni Libera's Four Miniatures based on Beckett's work prepared for television in 1988. She could also be seen in episodes and supporting roles in several feature films, the last of which was Krzysztof Zanussi's At Full Gallop from 1995.
Another important aspect of her career is her performances in the Polish Radio Theatre, where she played, amongst others, in Brunon Schulz's Father directed by Zdzisław Dąbrowski (1980) and in Waldemar Modestowicz's productions, such as The Mother Is Leaving by Tadeusz Różewicz (2000), Where's that Cheap Trader? by Alicja Bykowska-Salczyńska (2005), Chłopcy Malowani, Chłopcy Wybierani by Małgorzata Szymankiewicz (2006) and The Window by Anna Mentlewicz (2009). In 2008, she herself wrote and directed the radio play Pastorałka Wędrowna.
Distinctions and awards:
- 1967 – Distinction for the role in the monodrama Lunar Sonata based on poems by Yannis Ritsos and Giorgos Seferis at the 2nd National Review of Small Form Theatres in Szczecin; Award of the Presidium of the National Council of the City of Wrocław for performing Lunar Sonata based on poems by Yannis Ritsos and Giorgos Seferis at the Wrocław One-Actor Theatres Meeting;
- 1968 – Gold Medal of the Theatre Lovers Club in Kraków for promoting culture; 2nd prize for the monodrama Polish Pastorals by Jerzy Harasymowicz at the Wrocław One-Actor Theatres Meeting;
- 1969 – Silver Cross of Merit; award for the monodrama Death of Ophelia based on Stanisław Wyspiański, staged in Nowa Huta Ludowy Theatre, at the National Festival of One-Actor Theatres in Wrocław; individual award in the ‘Bliżej Teatru’ competition;
- 1970 – Activist of Culture; Great Audience Award for the Polish Pastorals performance by Jerzy Harasymowicz at the 5th National Review of Small Form Theatres in Szczecin; Award for the monodrama The Witch Must Come at the 5th National Festival of One-Actor Theatres in Wrocław;
- 1973 – Medal of the National Education Committee;
- 1975 – Janek Krasicki Medal;
- 1979 – Medal of Merit for the Kielce region;
- 1986 – Workers' Forum Award during the Wrocław One-Actor Theatre Meeting;
- 1991 – Lidia Zamkow and Leszek Herdegen Award and private Grand Prix Geras award for a monodrama based on Adam Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz at the 15th Wrocław One-Actor Theatres Meeting;
- 1997 – Golden Mask for directing Adam Mickiewicz's Ballads and Romances at the Stanisław Wyspiański Silesian Theatre in Katowice;
- 2005 – Award for the female role in Witold Gombrowicz's production of Dinner at Countess Pavahoke's directed by Warsaw’s Studio Theatre at the 30th Opole Theatre Confrontations; Feliks Warszawski – award for the female role in Witold Gombrowicz's production of Dinner at Countess Pavahoke's directed by Warsaw’s Studio Theatre;
- 2006 – Award for the performance The History of Philosophy, Highlander Style based on Tischner at Warsaw’s Studio Theatre (together with Wiesław Komasa) at the National Comedy Festival Talia in Tarnów; Award of the President of the City Council of Wrocław and the Irena Rzeszowska Award at the 40th International Wrocław One-Actor Theatres Meeting;
- 2008 – Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis; Award for the role of Wernyhora in Stanisław Wyspiański's The Wedding directed by Anna Augustynowicz for Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin at the 33rd Opole Theatre Confrontations ‘Polish Classics’;
- 2010 – Award for the original realisation of a poetic text – for the performance A Piece on Mother and Fatherland together with Marcin Liber and Beata Zygarlicka at the 9th International Festival of Contemporary Art in Warsaw. Premiere Festival in Bydgoszcz; Special Prize of the Jury of the ‘Amber Ring’ plebiscite for ‘outstanding artistic achievements in long-term cooperation with Szczecin's theatres, for good contact with Szczecin's audiences, for the inspirations given to them’; Lidia Zamkow and Leszek Herdegen Audience Award during the 44th International Wrocław One-Actor Theatres Meeting;
- 2012 – Jan Machulski Polish Independent Cinema Award in the best actress category for her role in Marcin Bortkiewicz's Drawn From Memory; Krzysztof Zaleski ‘Splendor Splendorów’ Award – Special Prize of the Polish Radio Theatre;
- 2014 – Actor's Award for the role of Meter in the play A Piece on Mother and Fatherland from the Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin during the RST Festival of the New Theatre in Rzeszów.
- 2019 – Winner of the 34th Toruń One-Actor Theatres Meeting, awarded for ‘faithfulness to the message of the author’.
Originally written by Monika Mokrzycka-Pokora, June 2007; last updated: October 2020 (ZL), translated into English by P. Grabowski