Word: stantons
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Blue Man Group today represents a virtual supernova of the group's beginnings. Long-time friends Matt Goldman, Chris Wink and Phil Stanton began Blue Man Group in reaction to the avant-garde art scene of the late '80s. "We were critics," says Wink. "We were like Siskel and Ebert--and Zeppo". They wrote "Tubes" in 1991 and were amazed by the critical and popular success it has become. After four years, European and U.S. tours and Obie and Drama Desk awards, "Tubes" is still selling out two shows a night in New York and Boston. "To be able...
...fair to the New York crowd, not every piece has a deep meaning or artistic reference waiting to be distilled. Says Stanton, "There are a couple of things that had a real conceptual genesis... but they got so far away from that, they became so much more an experience, it would be pretentious to talk about them as things that have tremendous meanings...
...blue color of the men themselves. The group gets asked 'the blue question' so frequently, according to Goldman, that "I went a few months saying 'You can ask anything, any question except 'why blue." The question is not only repetitive, but its also unanswerable, because, according to Stanton, "It didn't have a thinking process behind it." Adds Wink, "It's like saying 'why these chords' to a musician...
...other end of the spectrum, some segments of the show are intentionally laden with metaphorical meaning. The fractal segment, in which these exotic patterns become visible on a screen as the Blue Men spread shaving cream with trowels, is significant to Blue Man cosmology. According to Stanton, the unpredictability of fractals, their structure which is both methodical and chaotic, reflects the randomness of modern life and proves that "We [mankind] are not that crazy after all." Goldman is intrigued that "patterns do a thing which nobody expected them to do, which is look more similar the more complicated they become...
...Stanton holds that the division between meaning and play is really a false dichotomy, since "cool and playful and understanding can ultimately result in a conversation...