The Love Story of Marc and Bella Chagall Comes to Life in ‘The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk’
The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk
The love story of acclaimed artist Marc Chagall and his wife Bella is one for the ages and it was especially thrilling to see it brought to life on stage at the Wallis in Beverly Hills in Kneehigh Theatre’s production of “The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk” after viewing the recent Chagall costume exhibit several times at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Chagall depicted their love affair in numerous artworks including “Over the Town” showing the couple literally soaring over the rooftops of their hometown of Vitebsk, a quaint town which was then part of Russia and now in the country of Belarus.
The production, which stars Marc Antolin and Daisy Maywood as the couple, spans their life over multiple decades encompassing two world wars and locations including Paris and New York, from their love at first sight meeting before World War I and through Bella’s untimely death in 1944, due to a lack of antibiotics to treat her strep throat.
Chagall aficionados will appreciate that the clothing worn in his famous paintings (by costume designer Sophia Clist) as well as their sometimes quirky postures are re-enacted in the production.
The 90-minute play, performed without an intermission, is accompanied by a score by Ian Ross, who plays live on a variety of instruments with James Gow as Maywood and Antolin sing. Much of the music is based on the klezmer music of Eastern European Yiddish communities and conveys joy and celebration along with grief and mourning.
The city of Vitebsk was destroyed by the Nazis during World War II, as Chagall relates to the audience, and painting is the only way he can recapture the past including the rituals and music of his Jewish heritage–and the feeling of young love.
The set evokes an evolving Chagall painting, with lighting by Malcom Rippeth—an homage to an artist of whom Picasso famously remarked, “There’s never been anybody since Renoir who has the feeling for light that Chagall has.”
“The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk” runs through March 11 at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA, (310) 746-4000
