Part circus, part magic, part comedy act, part rock concert, part dance party, and part performance art, The Blue Man Group is a wholly weird and fun show you never expected and didn’t know you’d want to see on stage.
Imagine three tall men dressed in black with a deathly stare. They have no visible ears and their faces are covered in blue paint.
They perform with drums, pink jello, three boxes of breakfast cereals, PVC pipes, the gooey inside of a Twinkie cake, large balls, small balls, two willing audience participants, and a live view of someone’s esophagus.
Remarkably, all these jell together and make for an hour-long visual spectacle that is difficult to forget.
Imagine Mr. Bean and/or the Three Stooges high on Valium covered in blue paint as they explore, experiment with mundane day to day stuff found in your home. Combine this with a child-like almost alien-kind of innocence and you get the mad genius of The Blue Man Group.
Formed in 1991 as a performance art company, The Blue Man Group was born from the collaboration of three friends Matt Goldman, Chris Win and Phil Stanton straight out of the streets of New York. The group initially performed in small downtown clubs and later at the off-Broadway house Astor Place Theatre.
Ten years later, The Blue Man Group purchased the theatre. Twenty-five years later, they have been touring U.S. cities, Berlin, South America, South Africa, China and other parts of the world.
For their Manila performance, expect the unexpected.
The pace of their onstage antics was slow and hypnotic you’d think the group was making everything up as they went along. But apparently, they weren’t. Their movements were timed with the live band as well as with the burst of neon colors and graphics on the giant monitors on stage.
The Blue Man Group’s energy was on an even keel throughout the performance. The audience seemed to be expecting a lot of emotional highs. However, the group satisfied people’s curiosities more than the Filipinos’ penchant for thrills.
The audience was in on the fun when their spontaneous reactions received an equally appropriate, and at times, humorously inappropriate response from The Blue Man Group without being offensive.
The show is perfect for kids, adults and other sentient beings living on earth or in other worlds.
Children in the audience received a brief science show when the group presented the intricate process of visual perception via a video presentation. The group complemented these compelling visuals by wearing an odd, white tube-like costume that resembled the human optic nerve.
The group’s parody of society’s addiction to mobile phones, their funny take on rock concerts and the universal interconnectedness that unites us all – indoor plumbing and not the internet – is clever in a very subdued way most adults would appreciate.
There are no laugh-out-loud moments during the hour-long performance. Jaw-dropping moments that border between wonder and confusion--sprinkled with a few what-the-hell reactions--are plenty.
If you’re a blue alien, you’d find nothing weird with The Blue Man Group’s performance. But if you’re a normal human being looking for something you’ve never seen, felt or experienced before, watch The Blue Man Group’s Manila shows.
The Blue Man Group will run until September 25, 2016 at the Solaire Theatre.