There's always enough new hardware to keep a Blue Man confused and curious. Even five years make difference. When "Blue Man Group: Live at Luxor" opened in February 2000, most people couldn't look at the bald, blue guys on a cell phone screen or listen to their PVC-pipe drumming on iPods. But the Blue Man Group has always been about the need to spit marshmallows in the face of ever-changing technology. Just because the wildly popular troupe scored itself the ultimate Vegas status symbol — a custom- designed theater — don't expect the creators to get too carried away with it. "We don't want to be just throwing spectacle at people," says Chris Wink, one of the three co-founders of the New York-based production. "What sets us apart is this character. We're not trying to compete machine for machine with Cirque du Soleil."
Sure, the new 1,760-seat theater at the Venetian — no longer recognizable as the C2K nightclub that opened the casino —comes with a few surprises. Blue Man Group has a policy of never calling a show "new," in part because it clings to treasured segments from the -Broadway show that got the whole thing rolling in 1991. That said, "In this one, we do make some pretty awesome leaps," says co- founder Matt Goldrnan of the show, which continues previews this weekend before an opening-night party Monday. The troupe's fortunes have multiplied since it came to Las Vegas. The trio that once performed in the streets and shared a Manhattan apartment now owns the East Village building that still houses the original off-Broadway show, "Tubes." It's the headquarters for a Blue empire that keeps its founders too busy to suit up in skullcaps and greasepaint to open the show, as they did at the Luxor.
Within months of the Luxor opening, a series of Intel commercials elevated the Blue Man from a cult of plugged-in urbanites to prime-time familiarity. More carefully branded excursions followed The Complex" rock album and tour, a contribution to the animated "Robots" soundtrack and new live shows in Berlin, Toronto and London.
The expanding Blue Man universe simultaneously fueled and bypassed the Las Vegas enterprise. By multicasting its stars (who resemble sci-fi movie clones anyway) as well as the seven- piece band, the producers could run two and sometimes three shows per day, seven days a week. But the show that jolted and invigorated the Strip in 2000 seemed static by the time the Croupe announced its new deal to build out the Venetian space in late September last year. "We changed the New York show so much over the years, I think the word got out that the show changes," Wink says. But the Luxor was "a bigger scale" and harder to tinker with on its full-tilt schedule. Once the Venetian deal was inked, new segments were routed to Berlin and London for testing. The troupe did follow Cirque's business model in gutting the former Venetian showroom for a custom theater, even blowing out an exterior wall to make room for the new stage. Much of the design went into operational concerns — "The stage is essentially sitting on a giant sink so that we can hose the whole sucker down," says Goldman — and making the auditorium cozy for its size.
The most striking change for the audience will be the stage itself, designed by Marc Brickman, famous in the industry for his work on Pink Floyd's touring spectacles. Brickman "took us out of the form-following-function stage look and brought designer's eye to how we put the stage together," says director Michael Quinn.The multi-decked stage has a depth it never did at the Luxor, with a PVC-inspired design that includes 10,400 pounds of steel columns.
'Their aesthetic they've created over the past 15 years is really well-honed. They're artists," says Brickman. "They needed just the tools that they could turn on or turn off as they wanted to. They can actually contract and expand their vision in a way that makes sense for them."
For most of the new show's first half, the audience will see less than 20 feet of the stage. "We wanted to get the Blue Men as on top of the audience as possible," Quinn says. "Make sure you establish the simple heart of the show and make sure you don't distract from that until you want to. Until it's time." Even when the second half opens up with stage-exploding visuals, the goal was to "put the character back in in big way," Quinn adds. "Our trump card is we have this character who is endearing and intriguing and fun. That's what the show has that the other shows around here don't have." Part of the ongoing appeal lies in the lack of a quick explanation for the Blue Men and their antics. The three silent pranksters are at once innocent and crafty, progressing from silent-movie sight gags to droll social satire.
The new show updates its references to the Internet and manufactured pop music. But overall, "We're making a point about the rate of change, not the specifics of it," Wink says. "One of the things the arts seem to be saying is we're still these primal cave people who like to get around the fire... We're a ritualistic people and we can't escape that. We need to honor it."
The new show includes bit from "The Complex" that coaches the audience through rock concert fundamentals ("Movement Number One: The basic head bob"). It's what Wink calls "a game we've been playing since the beginning: To kind of make fun of something, but then to actually do it almost earnestly. Or making a damn "Are we making fun of rock That's the way we like good rock moment for just a second it."
Though it stops short of being the official title, the new show is advertised with the catchphrase "Bluephoria." "It's really about a sort of tribal euphoria we have always been shooting for, from the first day we got blue on," Wink explains. Early in the Luxor run, focus groups found the Blue Men to be mean or scary in their ad photos. "When we first came we had a chip on our shoulder: 'We're still downtown, " Wink says. "But the truth is there's just been a good vibe to the show always. The Blue Man is kind of innocent and kind of happy and we don't have to be afraid of that. We don't have to worry if that's cool or if that's not cool.
"We're comin' out of the closet: The Blue Man's happy."
Leaps and Bounds: Blue Man Group evolves for move to Th
