The statement displayed on the giant stage screen at the beginning of The Blue Man Group's show, set the tone for the theatrics the audience was about to witness. The statement from the Diplomacy handbook was about how to make a connection with a group of people by using shared experience to bridge cultures and differences. BMG took this page from the handbook to heart and shared the experience of the show by blurring the lines between performers and audience members throughout the evening.
Blue Man Group created this shared experience through various means throughout the evening. The audience participation began with reading 'instructions' for watching the show which scrolled across the top of the stage. Written with a funny conversational tone, intending to create laughter, the audience last Tuesday night gamely played along. The late arrival of two audience members brought more laughter to the theater as it was pointed out loudly with horns and video and the three blue men stared out at them from the stage as they made their way to their seats. In another skit, the blue men created artworks with spit paint, seeking approval through clapping and then gave the artworks away to people in the audience.
There were opportunities for a couple of audience members to get on stage and really take part in the action by becoming part of the group. The first audience member played along with her skit as she sat at a table with the three blue men while they served themselves Twinkies, eating their own, each other's and eventually all eating the yellow goo that gushed out of a hole in their shirt fronts. The second audience member was taken on stage, dressed in a white coverall, initiated into the group with a blue thumb print on his cheek. Then a helmet was put on his head and he was lead backstage and used to imitate a version of Yves Klein's anthropometries, or body paintings. To do this, they rolled blue paint on his coveralls, suspended him upside down and 'swung' his body at a canvas, creating an impression which was then further outlined with a contrasting color of paint. All of this was shown on the giant stage screen for the audience to 'witness.'
Although the show conveyed its message quite clearly, the entire show was performed mutely by the blue men, with an occasional announcer's voice that gave instructions for the audience to follow, or electronic devices that displayed words. There appeared to be a message even in the muteness of the blue men: sometimes you don't have to say a word to get your point across. And the blue men proved they are masters at it.
