The impressive retooling of Blue Man Group appears to be paying off. The show reported record takings for the week ending March 27, hauling in $626,742 at the box-office of the Briar Street Theatre, the highest weekly gross in the show's Chicago history.
That's a remarkable figure for a Chicago resident production with a cast of three in a 632-seat theater, especially a show that has been playing for some 13 years.
THEATER REVIEW: Blue Man Group ★★★★ Open run at the Briar Street Theatre, 3133 N. Halsted St.; $49-$69 at 773-348-4000; blueman.com or Ticketmaster outlets.
• Check out a CHICAGO BLUE MAN GROUP TIMELINE
• Blue Men have always been smarter than they look (2007 review)
For the last 14 years or more in New York, Boston and Chicago, drumming, racing graphics and potent performance routines have conveyed the central thesis of the Blue Man Group: The human infrastructure, maybe even the human soul, is rapidly collapsing under the strain of too much unfiltered information.
Audiences at the show between, say, 1997 and 2007 would respond with a collective howl of recognition. Not any more.
It's not that the amount of stimuli in the world has changed or that Chris Wink, Phil Stanton and Matt Goldman, the three savvy heads behind Blue Man Group, have stopped probing the central modern battle between the isolating force of technology and the relentless human need for primal, high-touch experience. When “Blue Man” opened in Chicago in 1997, most of the attention went to the drumming with paint, the swallowing of marshmallows and the wordless communication from these baldheaded blue dudes with restless, needy eyes. But even on that Chicago night back in '97, Wink, Stanton and Goldman were already handing out academic papers on the relationship of art with technology. And their wonkishness remains unbowed by the amount of green that their ever-accessible cobalt alter-egos have surely since provided them as they have drummed through the world from Tel Aviv to the Norwegian Epic cruise ship.
But Blue Man Group, Chicago's longest-running show, always has prided itself on offering an amusing-yet-contemplative reflection and refraction of the current cultural gestalt. And thus it faces far different imperatives from other shows that have played here, structurally unchanged for years.
Continue reading "UPDATED REVIEW: Blue Man Group is new, blue and still in touch with the times" »
Blue Man Group is adding new material to its long-running Chicago show, officially effective on March 3.
The new segments (mostly drawn from other, more recent Blue Man incarnations) include "GiPads," a riff on tablet computers, and a new finale with different music. Blue Man Group, which has changed its Chicago show only rarely, plays at the Briar Street Theatre. It's been running for nearly 14 years.
(Tribune photo)
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