Originally conceived by Mark and Marichka Marczyk, this piece of immersive theatre about the Kiev uprising of 2014 was first seen at the Edinburgh festival three years ago.

Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin of the Belarus Free Theatre have now expanded and re-directed it, to turn it into a mix of public spectacle and political theatre, and the result is viscerally powerful even if it leaves several questions unanswered.

The audience is divided into protesters – the vast majority – and observers. The former begin the evening sitting at a long trestle table enjoying bread and borscht, dancing with the performers and each other, joining in the folk songs. The mood is one of a communal fiesta that gradually gives way to street revolution. We follow the story of the chance encounter of the Canadian Mark and the Ukrainian Marichka, fellow musicians who find themselves involved in the uprising and who eventually marry. But the emphasis is on recreating the feverish events of February 2014: barricades are erected, sandbags filled, crowds kettled by the riot police, people felled by snipers. In the midst of it all there is, as Marichka says, a “permanent insomnia” that leads to counting sheep.

The staging is impressive, evoking memories of 1789, Ariane Mnouchkine’s show about the French revolution. There are poignant moments such as the reminder, as we agonise over withdrawal from Europe, that the people of Kiev were prepared to sacrifice their lives for the sake of closer integration. But, although there is a constant stream of newsreel footage projected on to the side walls, I found myself wanting more hard information. What actually triggered the uprising? Was the accusation that it was exploited by far-right nationalist groups simply Russian propaganda? At what point was the reviled President Yanukovych overthrown?

The audience, especially the “protesters”, are swept along by events without being given much analysis. What they get is a physical experience sustained by pulsating folk music from Balaklava Blues, a versatile multinational cast and the knowledge that two participants in the uprising are in their midst. It is highly exciting – but does it tell us enough?

• At the Vaults, London, until 17 March.