Spring Break
Miming BMG is at its best in Boston
by Joel Herzfeld
Arts | 12/9/08
Posted online at 11:05 PM EST on 12/8/08
For those of you who don't know, Blue Man Group act consists of three guys in blue grease paint and baldie caps miming their way through an hour and 45 minutes of sharp-witted clowning and nuttiness as well as, of course, smashing the heck out of a bunch of way-cool drums.
For example, there's the famous paint drums number: Paint spurts out of the Blue Men's chests onto their drums and spatters everywhere when they pound on those suckers. (The first three rows of the theater are designated the "poncho section.")
Boston Blue Man Mike Brown gave me and my co-editor, Dan Snyder '09, an interview and backstage tour of the Blue Man venue, the Charles Playhouse. Although I couldn't see it in the performance Dan and I went to, Brown told me the paint droplets fly "like, at least 20 feet in the air."
He also let me try out the big drum-the one that you feel thumping in your chest from the other side of the theater and which is only playable with a padded mallet that has a head the size of a small chicken. The idea is to smash that thing like you're playing baseball, he said. Just slam it with all your might. It's a powerful instrument.
There's also a bit in their set in which one Blue Man pitches marshmallows all the way across the stage at another Blue Man who catches them in his mouth. They go through about 25 marshmallows before the guy regurgitates it all onto a canvas to make some (dubious) art. There's a candlelit Twinkie dinner-cum-courting session with a female audience member. There's also the biggest Jell-O mold I've ever seen.
Blue Man Group had some really great high-energy sections, like Oingo Boingo at their bouncing, pumping best. The show made it really easy for even the most reserved participants to headbang. For instance, during their song "It's Time to Start," a voice-over instructs the audience in the basic head bob and one-armed fist pump.
"Ready, go."
Failure to go isn't stylishly indifferent or jaded. It's just limp and unconfident. This is a show for those who aren't afraid to show their exhilarated faces to complete strangers, which is sort of what this show's all about.
For example, there's the famous paint drums number: Paint spurts out of the Blue Men's chests onto their drums and spatters everywhere when they pound on those suckers. (The first three rows of the theater are designated the "poncho section.")
Boston Blue Man Mike Brown gave me and my co-editor, Dan Snyder '09, an interview and backstage tour of the Blue Man venue, the Charles Playhouse. Although I couldn't see it in the performance Dan and I went to, Brown told me the paint droplets fly "like, at least 20 feet in the air."
He also let me try out the big drum-the one that you feel thumping in your chest from the other side of the theater and which is only playable with a padded mallet that has a head the size of a small chicken. The idea is to smash that thing like you're playing baseball, he said. Just slam it with all your might. It's a powerful instrument.
There's also a bit in their set in which one Blue Man pitches marshmallows all the way across the stage at another Blue Man who catches them in his mouth. They go through about 25 marshmallows before the guy regurgitates it all onto a canvas to make some (dubious) art. There's a candlelit Twinkie dinner-cum-courting session with a female audience member. There's also the biggest Jell-O mold I've ever seen.
Blue Man Group had some really great high-energy sections, like Oingo Boingo at their bouncing, pumping best. The show made it really easy for even the most reserved participants to headbang. For instance, during their song "It's Time to Start," a voice-over instructs the audience in the basic head bob and one-armed fist pump.
"Ready, go."
Failure to go isn't stylishly indifferent or jaded. It's just limp and unconfident. This is a show for those who aren't afraid to show their exhilarated faces to complete strangers, which is sort of what this show's all about.
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