As the lights dim, you and your friends quiet down and whispers of excitement fill the room. Everything is pitch black, and you don’t know what will happen next. Suddenly bright lights are spotlighting three different… people? No, creatures? No. Three different blue men.
The Charles Playhouse in Boston saw a thrilling performance from the Blue Man group on Oct. 17. The Blue Man group started in 1987 right in New York. After seeing three blue men in his dream one night, one of the three original Blue Man’s created his dream into a reality by starting a one of a kind show. This show combines music with paint, colors and different skits to bring audience members an experience they will remember.
The Blue Mens’ iconic costumes consist of being painted blue and having no hair, which is specific and unique to their show. The paint that they use doesn’t dry, but stays looking wet throughout the show, as it is grease paint. The paint appears as though it would take hours to cover the performers’ bodies, however, according to the Blue Man group’s wardrobe and makeup supervisor Elio Mohrmann, it is pretty easy.
“The process is technically fairly simple for how profound the transformation is because that’s kind of one of the most magical parts of the show, but overall, for the makeup at least, it only takes about 45 minutes,” Mohrmann said.
One thing that makes this show so special is that the Blue Men don’t speak. They have very little facial expressions as well, only curiosity. This intentional choice for the show seems to serve a greater purpose for the audience and to the Blue Man themselves. For the Blue Men, they don’t have a real sense of themselves, making them non-judgemental of themselves or to others. For the audience, the silence from the Blue Man allows the audience to interpret things in their own way.
“The Blue Man is not up there telling you how to feel or how to experience the show,” Blueman Adam Erdossy said. “You do that on the ground and with the people around you. So, it allows you to kind of experience the show in a much more intimate way. And everybody doing that together was a really beautiful experience and unique.”
When it comes to the structure of the show, there is a script, which can differ each night depending on which Blue Men are performing, which band members are playing and which backstage crew staff are present. The point of a script is to create nuance and meaning behind each part of the show, but the Blue Men still have the freedom to choose how they will exhibit it. Some of the sketches are unique to each Blue Man group while other sketches have been passed on through time and from around the world.
“There are some sections which are considered legacy pieces, like the paint drums at the end, which is a sort of tribal thing to bring everyone together and has been in the show since day one,” electric supervisor Paul Marr said. “There’s also always a skit of catching and throwing marshmallows and a section called Live Klein based off of the work of painter Eve Kein. Things have also changed, for instance, now, we have more commentary on our society of electronics and screens; how it can connect us, but how it can also isolate us.”
The BlueMmen can only express curiosity, so many of their skits include them being introduced to new things or concepts, and the audience watches how they interact with the foreign product. For instance, when the iPhone came out, the Blue Men gave a performance reacting to the brand new technology, reminding the audience of a basic, almost primal, reaction to modern aspects of society. The Blue Man stage managers have to then advance the set and props to keep up with changes in technology and, consequently, the Blue Man production.
“We take current technology and look at it through the Blue Man lens,” carpentry and automation supervisor John Parker said. “So we’ve updated our technology to do that. We’ve added video screens on the balconies that are connected to live cameras of the audience and the stage. It’s the same show that you know and love, but visually, we try to stay current with the story that we tell.”
The technology gets put to use in many audience interaction skits. There were about five chosen audience members who were asked to go on stage. These skits make attendees laugh since they provoke a normal audience member to do something hilarious. Some were definitely more excited than others, but the Blue Men have to be ready for any audience member who comes to the stage.
“When we interact with people in the audience, we always have to be ready for anything, whether somebody’s foot is in your face or whatever it is, you have to be prepared to go into that experience with a fully innocent and open, curious mindset,” Erdossy said.
While the script of the production is to make sure that all of the messages and ideas have been performed for the audience, another aspect of the show are the improved pieces. The audience members add comedy and expression since the Blue Man group cannot speak or change their emotion, and they may also make a show memorable for everyone watching.
“The things that we have no control over, that can happen at any time, are the most magical parts of the show,” Erdossy said. “When an audience member does something that makes the crowd go crazy, it creates a super special moment for them, the viewers and us as Blue Men.”
