There is a long-standing notion that to be a great creative, one must suffer. And, in so doing, cause others to suffer, preferably on purpose. Broken relationships, chemical dependencies, and at last a miserable, lonely death are held up as hallmarks of a great artist or writer. But to be human is to suffer, and cause others to suffer, willfully and even more often unwillfully. It is the task of the creative to make something beautiful of suffering. The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, making its D.C. premiere at Theater J, sets out to correct the record. Written by Daniel Jamieson, it is the story of Russian Jewish expressionist painter Marc Chagall (Jamie Smithson) and his wife, Bella (Dani Stoller), a writer. They are ordinary people to whom extraordinary things happen, set apart from others by their aptitude in describing, through words or paint, what they see.
Growing up as Jewish subjects of the Russian Empire, the young couple’s lives in the city of Vitebsk, modern-day Belarus, are circumscribed by expectation and prejudice. Then, that most extraordinary thing of all happens: They meet and fall in love at first sight. Marc’s paintings become filled with endless permutations of Bella’s portrait and depictions of the lovers in flight, escaping the bonds of circumstance. With the fall of the tsar and the rise of the Bolsheviks, Marc and Bella hope for political, personal, and creative liberation—but come to realize that when the Revolution only allows a palette of red, there is no place for a painter whose specialty is whimsically Technicolor livestock.
Smithson’s Chagall is a strike against the “destructive creative genius” stereotype. He is a humble man, with a charming insecurity, who lives to serve his art. He knows that, separate from his art and the love that inspires it, he is nothing. But Bella is the dominant personality in the relationship, played by Stoller as someone on fire, with every gesture conveying a love of life. For all the love he bears Bella, though, and no matter how long he looks at her to paint her face into his works, Marc comes to understand he has never truly seen all of her.
With so much history and so many themes, director (and Theater J’s artistic director) Hayley Finn succeeds in striking a perfect balance of pacing. Appropriately for a show about creatives, the storytelling is conveyed through many different media. With original music by Ian Ross and Sarah O’Halloran, two musicians (Jeremy Allen Crawford and Katrina Michaels) frame the story through Yiddish-language klezmer tunes and Russian revolutionary anthems. Like in Signature Theatre’s 2024 production of Where the Mountain Meets the Sea, the musicians also play bit parts—Michaels’ accordion stands in for the ringing of a telephone, or the wailing of a reluctant mother-in-law-to-be.
The real show-stealers of course, are the trapeze artists—aerialists, to be precise—Thomas Martin and Rachael Small. They dangle from a picture frame suspended over the stage, bringing to life both the onward march of revolution and the titular flying lovers. The metal supports for the picture frame Misha Kachman’s set, but they blend in with the bold geometric shapes and simple solid colors of its early Soviet-period constructivist design. Chagall’s paintings appear in-show through the work of projection designer Camilla Tassi.
For those of us also living through a maelstrom of history, The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk offers a bit of respite and reassurance. True love is real; while it cannot prevent you from sailing through the worst of times, it will make the going easier.
So, hold on to the ones you love—even if they are somehow levitating 10 feet above the ground.
The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, written by Daniel Jamieson and directed by Hayley Finn, runs through Nov. 1. at Theater J. edcjcc.org. $79–$89.
