“Do you know why people paint?” Marc Chagall asks early on in The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, the hauntingly beautiful, expressionistic musical that opened Thursday at Northlight Theatre. His answer: “When some things are gone you thirst for their details in such a heartbreaking way, you feel an agony of need to remember…”
Painting was woven into every aspect of Chagall’s tempestuous life. It’s how he attracted the attention of a smitten young woman, Bella Rosenfeld, who first modeled for him and then married him in the Russian Jewish haven of Vitebsk (now part of Belarus). It’s how he made a name for himself in his homeland, rising for a brief moment far above his second-class status to become a cultural darling of the Revolution (until, quite suddenly, he wasn’t). It’s how he missed many important moments in his life, as when he turned up at home four days after the birth of their daughter following a frenzy of painting. It’s how he earned the money and stature that enabled them to leave Russia after his revolutionary zeal was destroyed by increasing humiliations directed at both him and his wife’s family, who owned three soon-to-be-ransacked jewelry stores in Vitebsk.
In 70 minutes, this production, directed by Elizabeth Margolius, carries us through Marc and Bella’s 35-year relationship as they navigate the tumult of early 20th-century history, including two world wars and a world-transforming revolution, via a gorgeous suite of klezmer-inspired songs richly rendered by fine-voiced leads Jack Cahill-Lemme and Emma Rosenthal. As they dance and sing and, often, passionately argue, the pair are ably accompanied by musicians Elisa Carlson and Michael Mahler. (Mahler also serves as musical director and adds an element of big-hearted joy to the show, which was written by Daniel Jamieson, with music by Ian Ross.)
The dancing (the show’s movement is also directed by Margolius) is enchanting and melancholy and evocative of both Chagall’s art and the period he lived in. (At one point, Cahill-Lemme strikes a pose that immediately brings to mind a patriotic soldier on a Russian Revolution propaganda poster.)
In his later years, after Bella died of a strep infection, Marc Chagall found in painting the only pathway back to visceral memories of his beloved wife–as well as the realization, as he illustrated her final book, that she saw the same world he did, but via a writer’s very different creative perspective.
It was a bittersweet gift, given that Chagall so often prioritized painting over spending time with Bella when she was alive. As Joni Mitchell so powerfully put it, Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?
That’s why some of us paint, and others of us write.
The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk runs through October 6 at Northlight Theatre.
For a full roundup of reviews of this show, visit Theatre in Chicago.
Photo by Michael Brosilow
Correction: The initial version of this review credited Elizabeth Margolius as only the show’s movement director. She is the director of the show and also directed the movement.
