COVER STORY
It’s a Blue World at the Venetian
 Can a group of blue men that have descended upon Las Vegas in the form of one entity with three bodies carry audiences off to a new realm where art and science intersect? Can a marriage of high tech and gunk live happily ever after in the desert? Will UFO’s –gumballs, marshmallows, and other objects de food that fly from mouths onto canvases along with spurting fountains of paint – forever become part of the everyday landscape of Vegas entertainment?
Tune into the saga of “The Bald and the Blue-tiful,” otherwise known as “Blue Man Group” performing live at the Venetian, which is proof positive that there is more to the entertainment spectrum of Las Vegas that meets the eye. For the last five years at the hotel, this performance troupe has bore testimony to the fact that that living outside the box is no an alien notion.
 Blue Man Group, with their bald, cobalt-blue heads (thanks to the roar of the greasepaint) is as hard to explain as why anyone would want to clean up the biggest mess this side of the Sierra Nevada that they leave on stage after the show. They don’t talk or show emotion. According to the group’s creators, Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton and Chris Wink, Blue Man expresses himself through art and music. The result only goes to show that what has been living inside him all these years definitely needs to get out.
“Techno-tribal” describes our work,” says Wink. “For example, we have a light inside a drum and we pour paint into the drum and it explodes 25 feet into the air. It looks like a rocket. Then we put a canvas over it and make a painting. It’s abstract expressionism. Are we making fun of it or do we love it? We don’t know. For people who like art, there are a lot of inside jokes hidden in there. Basically, the act is based around art and science – we call it artworld science.”
 “The process is hard to understand or explain,” Stanton chimes in, “but it leads to something beautiful or tribal.”
“Blue Man Group has a lot of freedom on stage,” explains Goldman. “And there are genuine moments with each other. There is no script so there are a lot of different scenarios in which Blue Man can present themselves. They surprise each other on stage. And the audience is a big part – they bring people up to join in the fun.”
”Blue Man is a deadpan character,” Stanton continues. “We wanted to create a cool kind of character that never laughs, smiles or speaks. We didn’t start out to be funny. But the comedy comes out of three people trying to work together and things going wrong or taking some weird twists. Three guys go around and figure out stuff together and one thing leads to another and a whole thing happens. The whole work is in the collaborative process. It springs from being together, playing around and looking for accidents.”
“Blue Man stands for the fact that no matter how modern we get , we still have to stay connected to our tribal past,” adds Wink. “It’s a visceral experience that happens when people get together – it’s a tribal-primal ecstasy that happens. The message is let’s not get so advanced that we forget to be passionate, playful and creative.”
It wasn’t always like this. All three are in their early 40’s and Wink and Goldman have known each other since they were 13. When they were in their 20’s, they moved to New York and became roommates. They met Stanton in 1986. The three began hanging out together and were part of a club of sorts – of which they were the nucleus – where the various members would nominate things to do and see. At the time, they were searching for something exciting and they would go to gallery exhibits, museums and concerts. The problem was, according to the trio, that the only thing that happened in the 80’s was that everyone got a VCR.
“The 80’s was mostly a stagnant decade for us,” Wink admits. “Our generation was kind of in-between things. The three of us were bonded by exasperation and the determination to get into something. We looked for it in art, music and science. Then, at a certain point, we stopped going out altogether.”
It was in 1988 that the three decided to bury the 80’s...literally. They dumped all their furniture, books, records, curtains and more into the garbage in an attempt to start with a clean slate. Then they had an even better idea. Stanton, who had come to New York to be an actor; Wink, who was writing synopses of articles for a Japanese magazine,, and Goldberg, who was working for a software company, decided to turn their trash into ritual.
“We came up with the Blue Man character between the three of us – it was our expression of being bored with the times we were in,” Wink says. “We chose blue because it was the color least referential to anything else and it has an emotional complexity. It is a severe color but also has a softness. But we wanted to do something instead of complaining about it. So we had an East Village artist paint us a psychedelic coffin and we got a permit from the city to conduct a burial in the park. We then announced it to a few newspapers and made a few calls. Dressed like Blue Man, we walked to the park with the coffin and buried it with a Yuppie doll with a tie, some crack and cocaine, some semblances of post-modern architecture and a puppet of President Reagan inside.”
The first Blue Man event managed to get detailed coverage on MTV news. Then there was the reaction of the crowd that had gathered, which was screaming with the thrill of it all. It didn’t take Goldberg, Stanton and Wink long to realize that they were on to something and that the Blue Man character resonated with the people.
After that, the trio would don the Blue Man costumes and do what they termed “guerilla events” in bars, clubs and museums. Over a period of about two years, they developed a body of bits that they could string together into an entire show. Those routines became the production that opened off Broadway in the Astor Place Theatre in 1991 and won both the Obie and Lucille Lortel awards. Then the Drama Desk Committee also decided to present Goldman., Stanton and Wink with an award for their show. To do so, they had to invent a new category, “Unique Theatrical Production.” Since then, Blue Man Group has been followed by other “unique” productions such as “Stomp” and De La Guarda” and the group has grown into one of the most vibrant sectors in the theater world.
Goldberg, Stanton and Wink did the first 500 Blue Man shows in New York themselves. The trio then recruited 25 other Blue men and opened up equally successful productions in Boston (1995) and Chicago (1997). The Las Vegas show is the largest production to date.
Since their landing here, music has played an even larger role than it has in previous Blue Man Groups. The trio makes all their own musical instruments and a number of new innovations have been introduced in Las Vegas in tandem with the subsequent release of their CD’s. The result, says Wink, is that the music in the Las Vegas show has reached a level of tribal density that previously Blue Man Group only hinted at.
Feeling that theater and art can reacquaint people with moments when they can see something in all its vibrancy, allowing them to see the world with fresh eyes, Blue Man seeks to poke fun at art speak and pretentiousness. They have accomplished their mission, which was to bring an uncharacteristic and innovative experience to the Strip.
It’s definitely a Blue world after all..
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