Blue Man Group
Essay Preview: Blue Man Group
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The off the wall antics and odd, but entertaining music style of the Blue Man Group has brought them to be one of the most popular and successful theater groups in the world today.
The Blue Man Group came into play in 1987. Creators Matt Goldman, a software producer, Chris Wink, and Phil Stanton, both working as waiters, say the Blue Man Group started as a weekend get together in which they would invite their friends over and talk about art, science, and whatever else interested them. The three saw their home city of New York to be a cultural wasteland. “We heard about this art world thing happening, but youd go and look, and it was like you were always in the wrong gallery or something. We wanted to shake things up a little bit,” said Wink in an interview with People Magazine. The trio came up with the idea that it would be surprising for people to turn the corner and find themselves staring in the face of a blue man. Initially the group was not getting the reactions they were hoping for, but that would soon change(Blue Man Library, People 92, 2).
The group performed regularly in Central Park and in the Wooster Groups Performing Garage. In 1991, the group premiered their first full show,”Tubes,” at the La MaMa Experimental Theater Club located in New Yorks lower East Side. The theater, founded in 1961, had a mission to “develop, support, produce, and present works of any artist”(Laurell). “Tubes” showed many aspects of a theater production, a concert, and a sketch comedy. Blue Man Group caught their first big break in 1991 when they won an OBIE Award, Off-Broadway theaters highest honor. “That was wild” commented Goldman when he and his colleagues were interviewed by People Magazine in 1992. “We didnt write pieces about having stuff spurt out of your chest thinking mass appeal. The first time I saw an actual upright adult see that and not leave the theater, I was really surprised.” That year, the Blue Man Group finally moved into their permanent base of operations. The Astor Place Theater became the Blue Man Groups new home. They performed their hit show eleven times a week to a packed house virtually every night (Blue Man Library, People 92, 3).
The Blue Man Group is described on their official website as being “a creative organization dedicated to creating exciting and innovative work in a wide variety of mediums” (Mulford a). To fully understand the Blue Man Group, one must come to understand the Blue Man himself. The character is dressed in all black and painted a special shade of blue created exclusively for the group but, this is only a very small part of the true Blue Man. The character is very complex. He is part philosopher, part clown, and part teacher. The three blue men take the audience through a journey of complex ideas, concepts, and contradictions of life. One finds out how the Blue Man perceives being human. The blue men have a great amount of positive energy and are very welcoming but, the character does not speak in the way one may think. The blue men communicate through their eyes and bodily expressions. “The character stands for the human spirit, even though he has the emotional range of Mr. Spock on a particularly self-controlled day” (Richheimer, 2). The character is timid, but passionate. The group worked to create a slightly strange but not frightening character, one that was loveable but not boring.
“We decided early on that he wouldnt have much facial expression, that he wasnt going to emote. But at the same time it was important that we impart Blue Mans love and spiritual core. We try to do it through our eyes. The small portals of emotion, and we try to keep the rest of the face impassive” (Richheimer, 2).
When asked “Why blue?”, Wink replied,
“Blue just felt right from the start. But after we started performing, people began pointing things out. We learned about Celtic and African tribes who painted themselves blue and that Yves Klein [ an early practitioner of the happening and precursor of performing arts] actually invented his own shade of blue” (Richheimer, 4).
The Blue Man is a very complex character and the goal of this character is to communicate the human experience without saying a word. He wants to show the value of working together and the “subtle effect of a glance or shrug” (Mulford b).
Their hit Off-Broadway show “Tubes” shows many different elements of the Blue Man style. The show has barely changed since its debut in the early 1990s. The show is a mixture of a concert and a comedy. Parts of the show are skits in which the blue men show their funny and artistic sides and other parts are amazing displays of the groups musical skills. The underlying aim of the show is to bring a better sense of community among the audience. As part of the pre-show, the audience is encouraged to participate in group readings. Phrases are displayed on monitors on the sides of the stage which tell the audience to do such actions as “the Arsineo Hall thing.” Also, the audience members are given crepe paper headbands before the show. This begins the bonding process between the theater goers.
The show is littered with a variety of different sketches. Each one displaying another amusing part of the Blue Man mentality. The most memorable and well known of all the sketches is commonly know as the “Marshmallow Skit.” In this sketch, one Blue Man is tossing marshmallows into the mouth of another Blue Man. This persists until twenty to thirty marshmallows are caught by the receiver. He then plants his face on a canvas allowing the glob of marshmallows to stick. He slowly pulls his face away allowing the audience to see his artistic creation and then suddenly slaps a $4000.00 price tag on the canvas. Another sketch happens simultaneously with the “Marshmallow Skit.” This one is called “Spin Art.” This time, instead of catching marshmallows, the third Blue Man is catching balls of paint. Once he catches one, he breaks it in his mouth and then spits the contents across a canvas. He does this three to four times until he finishes by copying his fellow Blue Man by putting a price tag on his new piece of art. At a different point in the show, each of the blue men take out a box of Capn Crunch Cereal. They each open their box and proceed to eat large handfuls of the breakfast cereal. With each chomp from the blue men, a different “crunch” frequency is played over the speakers. The group continues to chomp out a musical number until they