The tagline of The Blue Man Group’s North American Tour: ‘Still blue, the rest is new’.
For three days, The Wharton Center is going blue. The Blue Man Group will perform at Cobb Great Hall Friday, Jan. 20 through Sunday, Jan. 22.
The Blue Man Group is known for their artistic non-verbal stage performances, which is what inspired Blue Man Group member Meridian to audition.
Meridian said the audience can expect to see some classic performances from the group, but the show offers new experiences as well.
“The things that Blue Man is famous for: paint on drums, catching gumballs and marshmallows in our mouths from across the stage. The jumbo pipe instrument. We've got some of the classics in there,” Meridian said. “But then .. this one also has the most new material.”
Meridian has been a member of The Blue Man Group for 20 years. He auditioned for the group soon after graduating from acting school. While he has pursued other endeavors during this time, he found himself returning to be a Blue Man.
Meridian views the Blue Man character as humanity in its simplest form. He said the process of getting into the Blue Man character involves “stripping everything else” away.
“The Blue Man character embodies a lot of the universal human character characteristics: our desire to connect, our desire to create, our desire to be together in a space and celebrate our humanity,” Meridian said. “So getting into character with my group is a process of stripping away everything else and boiling down our humanity to some of its most essential and universal characteristics and trying to embody that as best we can.”
Meridian said that it is these basic human characteristics we all share that allows The Blue Man Group to connect with the audience, no matter who is watching. Anybody, no matter the culture or walks of life they come from, can connect to the character, Meridian said.
The non-verbal aspect of the show allows the audience to tune into the performance as well, according to Meridian.
“We've just found that not speaking in the show heightens our ability to communicate those more universal ideas,” Meridian said. “From the audience perspective, if you think about it, once you realize the blue man aren't gonna speak, I think you just sort of naturally tune into the other ways the blue man is communicating, whether it's through music, or energetically, or a facial expression, or even just the way you walk across the stage.”
Meridian said that the Blue Man Group’s new material makes the show worth seeing, even if you have seen them perform before.
