It’s a little surprising that a theatrical act as quirky as the Blue Man Group began its run in Las Vegas only last year. After all, Vegas is the place to find white tigers, dancing fountains, pirate shows and X-rated hypnotists all within a square mile of one another. The Blue Man Group’s indefinite run at the Luxor provides a refreshing form of entertainment for those who have tired of the chintzy monotony and glamour of the typical Las Vegas show.
The concept behind the Blue Men is simple and tenders widespread appeal. Three performers, dressed in black but daubed in cobalt blue face paint, fascinate the audience with an irreverent succession of ingeniously entertaining escapades, totally devoid of any speech. It’s a show that can appeal to the 5-year-old or the 50-year-old.
The Blue Man Group began its run in New York in the early ’90s, and the success it garnered there prompted runs in Boston and Chicago. The Las Vegas run opened in March 2000 and combines material from the East Coast runs with new material, designed specifically to take advantage of the capabilities of the high-tech Luxor Theatre.
As the show kicks off, the Blue Men beat paint-soaked drums, splattering canvases with neon pigment. One Blue Man tosses paint balls to another, who catches them in his mouth and sprays another canvas, creating art that looks something like what you might have created in kindergarten. The audience is mad for it, and the paintings get sold after the performances.
The Blue Men are backed up by a seven-piece, fluorescent-suited band, but they also create their own music. Mid-show they emerge wearing giant PVC-pipe instruments that look like a cross between an organ and a dinosaur’s rib cage. They bang on these and create a variety of tunes. They toy with the audience and plink out a few familiar melodies. At one point in the show, this results in a sing-a-long to Jefferson Airplane’s “”Go Ask Alice.””
The show is not merely a passive sit-and-watch experience. At several points in the performance, audience members are invited to participate in the ruckus. The Blue Men rush the seats and shove a camera down an unsuspecting person’s throat, projecting the image for everyone to see. They invite a woman onstage for a proper sit-down Twinkie dinner, complete with knife and fork. They kidnap a man, suit him in white, slather him in paint and catapult him against a giant canvas backstage. And in a finale in which everyone can participate, giant rolls of paper stream down from the back of the theater, draping people as they rush to pass it down through the aisles to the stage.
The fun that the Blue Man Group propagates is the sort of innocent amusement that most people had to leave behind during early adolescence. The 90-minute performance is refreshing, as it awakens in the audience the wonder and delight that can only be evoked by things such as Cap’n Crunch cereal, paper streamers, Twinkie feasts and neon lights.
At a cost ranging from $55 to $65, the price for such fun can seem a little steep. However, when you compare it to the thought of spending $100 for two hours with a couple of kooky Germans and their albino menagerie, the Blue Man Group shines as an example of entertainment value that’s hard to meet in a place like Vegas.
