PLAYFUL, sombre and whimsical, Kneehigh’s Flying Lovers of Vitebsk is inspired by the life and artistic works of Marc Chagall and his wife, Bella.

Entitled Birthday in its original form and starring director Emma Rice as Bella and writer Daniel Jamieson as Marc, The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk was originally conceived and performed over 25 years ago.

Rice revisiting the play for Bristol’s Old Vic Theatre in 2016, prompted its rebirth as The Flying Lovers, giving voice to Bella, whose writing has often been overshadowed by her husband’s art.

Ian Ross’ beguiling music opens The Flying Lovers as an intertwined Bella (Daisy Maywood) and Marc (Marc Antolin) sing a bittersweet duet.

Ross’ folky soundtrack mixes Yiddish, Russian and French, reflecting the protagonists’ nomadic lifestyles during Europe’s unsettled war years.

Travelling together for 20 years, Bella and Marc dodge World War and the Russian Revolution, hearing of how their home city, Vitebsk, was flattened by the Germans.

Musicians James Gow and Ian Ross accompany Antolin and Maywood with a mandolin, accordion and trumpet to complete the tight-knit highly-talented cast.

Sophie Clist’s design is deliberately sparse, allowing the audience to completely immerse themselves in Bella and Marc’s intense relationship. A rickety stick frame canopy sitting on a sloped black marble platform reflects the instability of the Chagalls’ lives and Europe’s future, matching too the poverty of war and their scanty possessions.

Aside from this backdrop and amusing fish/cockerel hats, little other props are used, instead intimately focusing on the lovers and their physicality as like infant acrobats they practically hang from ropes suspended off the wooden frame.

After an initially very pretentious phone call interview that prompts Marc to reminisce, Jamieson’s script is beautifully written, describing the lover’s first glances as “(shooting into them) like splinters from an arrow” and their mutual bond as “like a pair of opera glasses”.

Sound evokes memory of “mumma frying fish balls” as he recalls a colourful and comical wedding party followed by Europe going to war, coinciding with their honeymoon.

Humorous and bewitching, The Flying Lovers seductively envelopes, soaring high with their love before crashing back to reality in its tragic conclusion.

In Kneehigh Theatre’s trademark style, it is highly creative and musical, poetically capturing the Chagalls’ unique and profound instantaneous life-long connection: one certainly to be envied.