Created by Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton and Chris Wink in 1988, this sometime outrageous, inventive show has developed into a grand franchise with excellent promotion throughout the world in smaller venues, television and concert type offerings. The original creators do not perform, instead seven Blue Men alternate in the three main roles with bald heads painted blue that give off a childish, alien innocence with their antics. It’s all backed up with some interesting special effects and very loud, almost metal rock original music that has the whole theatre vibrating for most of the performance.
Some will call it creative, others nonsensical. Try clever or dumb, art or gobbledygook, avant garde or downright disgusting. Whatever you choose, the premise stands – everyone has an opinion of what they consider entertainment. Most of the opening night audience was enjoying the antics and following instructions of an offstage voice instructing them to read a crawl sign, to hoot and holler, to wave their arms, and stand and shake their rears. It all seemed a bit much for this observer. But as I said, everyone has an opinion and if the “Emperor’s New Clothes” looks good to your neighbor, perhaps I’m missing something.
The most interesting part of this production are the instruments, handled by six musicians as well as the Blue Men. They sound, and some look like something out of Dr. Seuss. (Not all mentioned here are used in this particular production). The electric zither and hammered dulcimer are the most familiar to the average person; then there is a cimbalom, a larger type dulcimer from Hungary, a Chapman stick, and sometimes they throw in the piano smasher: a grand piano with its top removed and stood on its side and played by hitting the open strings with a large mallet.
The percussion instruments include the paint drums that splash neon colored paint into the air against a canvas, sword airpoles, angel airpoles and wiper airpoles.
Then there are the pipes and tubes that give off tunes; the PVC pipes struck with foam rubber paddles, the tubulum struck with drum sticks instead of paddles, the backpack tubulum and the drumbone, a percussive spin-off of a trombone. It is a sliding tube within a tube that creates a variety of pitches.
When Shakespeare named one of his plays “Much Ado About Nothing,” he never dreamed of anything like this production because if he had, he just might have saved the title for “The Blue Man Group.”
Where: Center For The Performing Arts, San Jose
Through: April 7
Details: (866) 395-2921 or visit www.shnsf.com.
