Three men walk into a stadium — and learn to be rock stars, all in one evening.
That’s the basic story line behind the Blue Man Group’s Megastar World Tour, which runs until Sunday as part of the 2009 Deaflympics’ arts program. The musical theater troupe arrived in Taipei earlier this week and held an extra performance on Thursday afternoon, donating all ticket sales to the Red Cross for the victims of Typhoon Morakot.
The Blue Man Group, which features three bald and mute men covered in blue paint and dressed in black, has become a global franchise, with permanent shows running in Las Vegas, Berlin and Tokyo. They gained wider fame for their appearances in a series of Intel advertisements, and a tour with Moby inspired the group to step onto larger stages.
This weekend’s performances take place in a setting suited for a megastar — the 10,000-seat Taipei Arena (台北小巨蛋), but the Blue Man’s core character is still drawn from the group’s roots as street performers in New York.
“The Blue Man just shows up some place and spends the next hour and a half trying to figure out what’s going on,” said Blue Man Group Director and performer Brian Scott, after a press conference in Taipei earlier this week.
“So with the Megastar tour, it’s the Blue Man unwittingly thrust into the world of rock stars, but he doesn’t really know what this rock ’n’ roll business is really all about, because the Blue Man character is not a rock star.”
The show both satirizes and celebrates the rock ’n’ roll concert experience. The Blue Men, innocent and curious by nature, stumble upon a “how-to manual” that teaches them the basics of being a rock star. They go step by step through the manual, which includes clinical instructions on how to gyrate their hips and lip-sync.
While the Blue Men draw laughter with their awkward attempts at becoming rockers, they impress audiences with their musicality. Backed by a five-piece band, the Blue Men pound out rousing, hypnotic rhythms on a variety of specially designed percussion instruments: PVC pipes, drums that spit out paint, and an old grand piano that’s flipped on its side with the mallets exposed and is struck like a bass drum.
“There’s an aesthetic to the music that’s tribal. It’s very tribal but it has a modern vibe to it,” said Scott.
And even though the group’s Megastar show, its only touring performance, has a tighter script than its small theater shows, Scott says there will be some room for the Blue Men to engage in playful interaction with the audience.
Their quest to become rock gods often falls into parody, but at the end the Megastar show still carries all the elements of a great rock concert, said Scott. “It’s a good vibe, it’s the kind of thing that makes feel people feel closer.”
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