Blue Man Group
by Dean Blaine

Normally, I try to avoid turning blue, but when offered the opportunity to write a story on the famous Blue Man Group, I reevaluated the situation. First and foremost, I would be paid for my trouble, and I could hang out in Vegas. But I also figured that because Las Vegas is a town where anything goes, it couldn’t hurt to learn the proper technique for placing a latex ball of paint in your mouth, bursting it with your teeth, and creating a work of art by spitting the paint onto a canvas — which Matthew Banks of the Blue Man Group promised to show me. Never let it be said that I am above risking my well-being for a story. Then when I posed the idea that I would actually become a Blue Man — makeup, bald head, and all — and the Blue Man Group bought it, the deal was sealed.

So I traversed the wilds of Las Vegas, seeking to become one with a small, elusive tribe of strange, hairless-earless hominids known for stuffing their blue faces full of marshmallows, Twinkies and Captain Crunch and pounding out infectious rhythms on plastic PVC pipe. What was I getting myself into? What will it feel like to be inside their skin? What could I learn from being blue? The questions were daunting.

I am not afraid. I was the kid still eating crayons in the sixth grade. Purple crayons mostly, I liked the texture. Teacher made me write a letter home once:“Hi Mom, Just in case I get sick tonight, you should know that your twelve year old son was eating crayons at school today.”Bring it on Blue Man.

The original Blue Man Group was born around 1987 in New York City. Three friends, Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton and Chris Wink, donned bald caps and slapped blue greasepaint on their faces and a surprisingly complex character was born. “An element of the character just happened once we put on the makeup,” Wink says. “It erases your daily mask.” “The color blue felt a certain way, being bald felt a certain way, not speaking felt a certain way.” In 1991, “Blue Man Group: Tubes” opened off Broadway to critical acclaim. The “feeling” Goldman, Stanton and Wink got from the blue makeup was contagious. The shows were electric, full of outrageous contraptions and pounding rhythms and otherworldly, irreverent gags and people got it. A bond was forged between the silent blue men and their audience. The popularity of the show never waned. Today, no less than 50 blue men perform in Blue Man Group productions in five major cities throughout North America and Europe. The original founders, Chris, Matt, and Phil, have released two critically acclaimed albums as the Blue Man Group. The Blue Man Group has even touted computer chips for Intel, scored the animated film Robots, and made numerous appearances on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”

The show came to Las Vegas in March 2000 and enjoyed a wildly successful, five-year stint at the Luxor. In October 2005, the Blue Man Group moved to a new home at the Venetian, a 1,750-seat, state-of-the-art theater created just for the Blue Man Group. Though the theater contains more seats than the previous space, the room is actually smaller. “This is a very intimate theater and I think it works a lot better for the show,” says co-founder Phil Stanton. The new show offers numerous surprises. “We have a whole new approach to set design that I think is really going to blow people’s minds,” Stanton says.

What’s behind the intimate connection audience members feel with the Blue Man Group, the unique energy that has sustained the show all these years? The girl seated in front of me at last night’s performance certainly felt it. She couldn’t sit still. She bounced in her chair. She sat slack-jawed. She hee-hawed. She slugged her boyfriend in the shoulder. What is the mysterious power of the blue? That’s what I hoped to discover when I put on the makeup.

“The Blue Man is someone that’s inside of us, it’s the human part of us that connects everything,” Las Vegas Blue Man Matthew Banks tells me as he shaves the back of my neck. In a few minutes they will apply the bald cap to cover my hair and ears. They use a strong glue to apply the rubber cap, and if we don’t shave the back of my neck, Matthew says, the bald cap will tear my hairs out by the roots when it comes off. That sounds painful. I agree to be shaved.

The paint goes on thick; it covers my entire head. Nearly a quarter inch of blue greasepaint is slathered all over the bald cap, around my eyes, in my eyebrows, in my nose...everywhere. “Get it on there,” Matthew says, “we use a lot of it.” It’s greasy and it has a tendency to melt and run when the performers get hot. Blue men often apply more of the blue goop throughout the show. I can’t imagine needing any more. I feel like a ballpoint pen already. It’s sensual though, greasy and liberating. I stare at myself in the mirror and I smile. I can’t help it. I’ve lost my cool.

“The Blue Man walks like he’s walking though peanut butter,” Matthew says. We’re on the stage now, and Matthew is describing the essence of being blue. When you’re walking, he says, keep your arms by your side, your feet parallel. “Stand like a gunslinger.” This is a lot for a new blue. My stance is a little more Frankenstein than John Wayne, but I oblige.

Next we explore the stage. “Everything around them is an amazing, deep, and important thing that they’re absolutely bewildered by,” Matthew says. The character is part superhero, part dog, and part baby. The superhero supplies the intention to feel and help. Blue Man has the reflexes of a dog, and the naiveté and bewilderment of a baby. We walk to a corner of the stage, both in Blue Man mode, ‘til we reach a prop from the show, a series of framed posters leaning against the wall. “What do you want to do with it?” Matthew asks. My eyes grow wide. Suddenly, I’m feeling the part. I reach out and knock one of the posters to the floor. It lands with a thud and I instinctively strike the gunslinger pose. We both stare at the fallen poster in amazement. We look at each other. This is great. I knock over another poster.

But one can’t be a true Blue Man without getting messy. “Spin Art” is a trick from the show where a Blue Man catches a ball of paint in his mouth, bursts it with his teeth, and spits the paint onto a spinning canvas. If you do it right, it makes mighty fine modern art. The real blue men actually sell their “Spin Art” creations in the Blue Man gift shop after the show. I wear a Tyvex suit to keep the paint off my clothes but it does nothing for the shoes. Next, I place a gumball-sized ball of hot pink paint into my mouth. It tastes like rubber. “Bite it,” Matthew says, “sometimes you have to chew it if it doesn’t break right away.” “When your mouth fills with paint, it’s best to swish it around a little bit. Let it mix with the saliva in your mouth and get nice and fluid.” No turning back now. This is what separates the blue men from the boys, I tell myself. What if this is the final obstacle to understanding the Blue Man? I bite hard. *Note: the paint is real. It does not taste like cherries or bubble gum. It tastes like paint. But I’m a sixth grade crayon eater. For the story, for blue men everywhere, and for the crayon eaters of the world, I take a deep breath, swish it around, and spray hot pink paint across a nice white canvas. Plan your next Las Vegas vacation online.

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