The Blue Man Group - by Robin

Everyone sits down in their chairs, calm, waiting, unsure whats going to happen. The lights fade away, the room is silent. Even the chatter from us students stopped. Everyone is expecting something to happen. We dont know what, or how.

Then, suddenly, a noise. And light. Through tissue, we spot the silhouette of a bald man, playing the drums. His light then fades away, and the one next to him starts shining, revealing another man, bald, playing the drums, but another melody. Light fades again, revealing yet another bald man, playing drums. Then it fades quicker, revealing them all faster, over and over again, and all their basic melodies morph together, creating a beautiful and complex crescendo. They all go faster, louder, stronger, the crescendo increases, and then, suddenly, a final boom, and all three stop their movement, turn towards the crowd. We cant see their faces through the tissue, but everyone knows they are staring right at us. One hell of a reveal. Strong, creepy, fascinating and funny.

This can be said about the entire show. At its core, the blue man group is a comedic act of three bald, blue men. They cant talk, all they have at their disposal are their acting skills, and some tools. A wise man once said, that some gestures mean more than a thousand words. This show proves it. 

Underlined by great musical scores, the three men discover things of our human world, simple things. Think of young children discovering their new toys, how they experiment with them, not necesearly in the way they are supposed to. An example, they discover how to use colors, but instead of painting with brushes, the throw them into each others mouth and spit them on paintings. What may sound cheesy and old is however massivly improved with the great acting, the three man absolutly nail their characters, and once again the musical and lightning work. The show could be seen as a high quality modern circus, just better. 

Because it has even more qualitys to it. First, it is quite over the top, and always surprising. The front lines all had to wear rain-protection shirts, as they had a great tendency of throwing stuff into the public. Lots of stuff. Sometimes very unexpected, an example: they were sitting on a table, focussed on each other, and suddenly, out of nowhere, they catapulted a random cake in the middle of the audience. Seriously. No one saw that coming. 

Another awesome quality is interaction with the audience. As I mentioned before, they have a tendency of throwing stuff at us.

we had to wear ponchos just in case...

But thats far from everything. First, they went into public quite often. Or, climbed over our seats. They also gave some of their stuff to the viewers, like self made paintings. Not sure if anyone really wanted them, but whatever...

At some point, they were in the middle of a performance, but all the sudden, red lights started flashing, sirens went on, the three stopped their movements, grabbed the live feed cam and filmed a bunch of late arrivals, calling them out for beeing late. Everyone laughed pretty damn hard. 

The best part was propably a lady the grabbed from the audience, and taken on stage. And I cant tell whetever she was involved with them or not, because if she was not, it was some of the best impro I have ever seen. Serioulsy, awesome job.

Towards the end, they brought the big guns and started shooting giant balloons and kilometers of toiletpaper in the crowd, the crazy finale to a crazy show.

We were not allowed to take pictures during the show, only during the finale..this is us covered in toilet paper and wearing ponchos to avoid being covered in paint! But we were able to take pictures with the artists afterwards...They stayed in character and did not utter a word, just like the show.

Overall, the blue man group is an awesome specatcle. Great acting, comedy, music, interaction, even some social critique, it is a must visit in Boston, and I only have one question, why are you reading this? Do it like us, go get some tickets! Like right now!

If you're back from ordering (or already did it in the first place), here is some background stuff about them:

The group was founded 1991, by three close friends, Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton on Manhattens lower east side. They quickly grew to a bigger and stronger organisation, getting national media attention aswell as overwhelming positive critical acclaim, including Emmy and Grammy awarded shows. Today, they have theatrical installations in Boston, New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, Orlando and Berlin, aswell as a tour in South/North America and a show on a norwegian cruise line ship, and their organisation includes over 4000 employees and about 40 "blue men". 

When the three students created the blue man character back in 1991, and started investing lots of ressources into their project, they received lots of sceptical feedback. They however decided to stick to their plan, and presented their work for the first time at the Astor Place Theatre, NYC. The overall reception was so overwhelmingly positive, it lead to their massivly ascending career. Today, the group is mostly acclaimed for their innovative on scene productions, interactions with the audience, and musical work. In fact, the group has been on multiple tours excluivly focussing on their rock music, has a discopraphy including 5 albums, and has been awarded with Grammys.

As a final verdict, I think we can all agree that these people are awesome, and that the Blue man group is with no doubt a must see in Boston, or anywhere else on the globe.