The amount of anticipation flowing through Briar St. Theater Wednesday night as a largely hyped audience filled their seats wasn’t expected. After 17 months, three eerily blue men dressed in black were about to retake the stage and prove “Blue is indeed Back”. This crowd was ready.
Originating in New York in the 80’s before expanding to Chicago in 1997, Blue Man Group has proven an entertainment juggernaut that has enthralled well over 100 million people around the world since its creators, Phil Stanton, Matt Goldman and Chris Wink painted themselves blue and led a wacky procession through the streets of New York thirty years ago.
The August 18th performance commemorating the group’s return was a potent reminder why Blue Man Group is such an enduring force. Comedy, music and art are always rightly referenced as cornerstones of Blue Man Group’s winning mystique. Rarely are drama and suspense also mentioned as faithful and important contributors to the show’s success. Now well into the digital age, technology too has infiltrated into the show’s format and is now one of its most essential and beautiful components. From the bright red LED messages scrolling humorous warm up high above both sides of the stage to the flood of video monitors enlisted to add bracing intensity during pivot points in the performance, technological wizardry functions as digital sleight of hand and is now a signature attributes of the Blue Man Group identity.
Classic aspects of the show endure. The marshmallow toss, gratefully, is still a definitive skit and remains an integral part of the production. We all love witnessing the incomprehensible and can’t help but be thrilled to see the seemingly impossible conquered. Such is the marshmallow toss and It’s one of the many pieces of the show that revel in the trio’s physical prowess. Versatile actors who nightly demonstrate formidable athletic capabilities, excel at communicating with just eyes and gestures, and know almost instinctively how to deliver fierce rhythms on custom-made PVC pipes, drumbones, they’re like a triple threat from another dimension.
There’s also a not-so-secret weapon that helps insure the musical underpinning of the show stays in the realm of the glorious. Stationed behind glass on a platform hovering about twelve feet above the stage floor, another set of drums, a Chapman Stick (something akin to an electric guitar souped up like a muscle car) and a Zither both back up the three blue stars and erupt into their own fits of musical brilliance anchored in rock. As reliably sensational as the blue men themselves indisputably are, the luminescent skeletal band’s excellence make it indispensable in propelling and sustaining the show’s magic.
At its heart, Blue Man Group is not only approachable theater, it’s participatory theater in the most pleasingly fiendish way. Prowling silently through the aisles or walking brazenly over the tops of occupied seats, the blue men scour the audience for volunteers to join them on stage. Disdaining low hanging fruit in the rows directly in front of the stage, they sometimes dove deep into the 600-seat auditorium for prey. On this muggy August night marking their return to live performance, the recruits were all women. It was impossible not to notice how gently each of them was escorted to the stage and equipped with apparatus appropriate for the skit in which they were to participate. Safety glasses, wigs, face shields, capes, bright yellow hurricane worthy rain gear, they were always placed on the chosen with care and the kind of tenderness that strikes wonder. What happened after they were prepped often was a different story; leaving some of the volunteers mildly shaken but never truly troubled. A few even seemed to find the limelight appealing.
Some tweaks accompany the troupe’s return to the stage. A few of those changes can only be seen in the Chicago Blue Man Group performance. Other pieces of the production have been altered to comply with current health and safety guidelines. As of the 8/18/21, the theater is not requiring proof of vaccination or a negative test status for admission. Masks are required and are requested to be up for the duration of the performance.
Blue Man Group: Blue is Back
Briar St. Theatre
3133 N. Halsted St.
Chicago, IL