Playwright: text by the ensemble. At: Briar Street Theatre, 3133 N. Halsted St. Phone: 773-348-4000;$49-$69. Runs through: open
When this quirky performance art/stunt show made its Chicago premiere in 1997, it was little more than a high-tech vaudeville designed to test the post-psychedelic generation's tolerance for multi-sensory overload. An unbroken 15-year run has evidenced the unflagging popularity of extasis-in-groups, but after more than decade of revels recalling the amorally-exuberant exploratory play we enjoyed as children, a certain maturity was inevitable, making for changes in the program's structure.
This doesn't mean that the noisy and messy fun that continues to draw repeat customers of all ages has been discarded as too juvenile for sophisticated post-millennium audiences. The spurting twinkie-vests and inquisitive video-probes guarantee a modicum of yuck-factor, as do the exhibitions of creative chewing and spitting, not to mention the human-paintbrush art. We also get periodic audial stimulation via percussion symphonies played on spraying drum-heads and PVC-pipe marimbas, with extra ear-muscle supplied by a band dressed for a Brazilian carnival.
What's been added, however, is a manifestoa statement of intent to lend a shape to the mischiefprojected onstage as we enter the auditorium. "When meeting people from a foreign culture, offer gifts that reflect your interests as a gesture of friendship," it exhorts us, ultimately concluding "The best way to forge a lasting friendship is to create something together." This sentiment is reiterated later in the show, when a trio of iPhones debate the world of "2-D" vs. that of "3-D," at which time the Blue Man ethos becomes clear: Fourth-wall separation of performer and audience, exemplified by the culture of faceless text-communication, is two-dimensionaland that's bad.
The silent Blue warriors fight valiantly against isolation, however: climbing over chair-backs with spectators seated in them, coaxing audience members to the stage to assist them in their tricks, scatter-shooting (soft) projectiles into the house and conducting the crowd in orchestrated chant-alongs. Even the much-publicized "splash" rows in front, where customers are issued waterproof ponchos, represent an effort to share the experience. By the time the animatedor so we thinkstick figures step forward off their screens to encompass the entire theater in their communal embrace, even the most reticent playgoer will be caught up in the gleeful kinetic anarchy.