Blue Man Group

A Live Evolution from Madness into Magic

By Louw Mulder

I was fortunate enough to get invited to the opening performance of the world acclaimed Blue Man Group show for their South African tour at the Teatro in Montecasino. Never ever have I experienced something like this, but what remains a fact, is that I experienced Awesome.

It would be close to impossible to categorise this show into a specific genre. It’s not a musical, and it’s not a play, even though there are three blue men playing with music. As they refer to themselves, Blue Man Group is comedy, theatre, a rock concert and dance party into one. What I would say is that it is an extraordinary drumming show, built with innovation, art, and the love for crazy.

Blue Man Group is a visually enchanting experience, with massive lights, thundering sounds and bright awesome colours. Be warned that this show contains a huge amount of strobe lighting, but some of the magic will be powerless without these strobe effects.

Some of the acts, or should I say scenes of this show, really dig into the curiosity of everyone seeing the show. Elements like “What is that?” and “How do they do that?” are frequently a topic of any audience member’s thoughts, together with the awe of “What did I just experience?”

Yes it is three blue men, with little to no facial expression, together with a 4-piece band and a whole technical crew in the background. They perform magic with various sketches, which sometimes includes gumballs, Twinkies, and also a theme which runs throughout their whole show – Paint, very colourful paint.

Every single inch of madness would be a total waste of creativity if seen in isolation. But the wonder of creating something totally unexpected when all these elements are combined, is madness turned into magic.

I need to highlight two acts of their performance, which just blew me away. Being a trombone player myself, I found their creation, called the Drumbone, very fascinating. It’s what they refer to as a tube-within-a-tube, which slides like a trombone to get different sounds when hit. At first, three blue men, playing with plumbing PVC pipes look like just another funny sketch, but then the drumming on these pipes starts. With every slide of the pipes, more sounds are created, until the full band joins in, developing these Drumbone sounds into a full rock number.

Secondly, and probably most familiar to Blue Man Group, is the Tubulum, an instrument built from a series of PVC pipes, with rubber slappers fitted at the ends. One would say it is a plumbing pipe organ, but looking at how this instrument is built, the heads are designed to be struck like drums, to agitate the air inside the open tubes.

With this Tabulum, they manage to create Awesome, because their passion and excitement playing it, contributes to what the Afrikaans man would say; “Lekker Kry”. It takes all three men to play this instrument, which intensify the focus on the object, which the audiences tries to figure out. Various songs are played, with backing from their band. But what added the touch of brilliance, was when they brought in a little South African Magic, as they started to play Mandoza’s Nkalakatha. Needless to say, the audience roared.

The audience at the Blue Man Group show, becomes an added feature to the show. The interaction with the audience is extensive, but according to plan. Co-Founder of Blue Man Group, Phil Stanton says that through the Blue Man’s connection with the audience, they hope to encourage this human-to-human interaction, while helps people reconnect with their own sense of wonder and discovery.

Stanton said: “The Blue Man appeals to the side of ourselves that we don’t let out that often. He’s sort of a human being turned inside out. In him, you see the things usually hidden by our need for social masks.” This is in essence of what you need to know before opening yourself up, before going to the show.

It’s sheer brilliance, entertaining craziness, but overall, an effective and pulsating show, that makes you just want to live in colour.

Blue Man Group will be at the Teatro till Sunday, 12 March 2017, before it opens in Cape Town’s Grand West Arena on 21 March 2017 for a week. You can get all ticket information here: http://www.stageandscreen.co.za/blue-man-group/

Edited by Bronwyn Kerry