Blue Man Group is fabulous. It's funny, silly and certainly juvenile but with a lot of heart. What is it? Three guys doing --- stuff, their faces and hands caked in blue so they look like robots, except for their expressive eyes and mouths. They play percussion instruments too and there is a very loud backing band up in the wings that helps along the high energy nature of all their bits.
The act started out in New York more than twenty years ago, and the local press seems to think the earlier shows in a smaller venue were better. Well, if you didn't see those, and maybe even if you did, this one at the Golden Gate feels just fine.
Our favorite bits were the take off on the IPAD (the enormous "Gi-pad"), the way they played with the differences between 2-D and 3-D, of course the monumental boy-humor of tossing, catching, eating and vomiting all those gumballs -- and let us not forget the artwork of Sergei Pretencione.
When a show gives you belly laughs, it's good. When you can clap to the music, it's good. When you feel great leaving the theater, it's good. Nothing against Sartre and Beckett, whose works seem to be filling local theaters these days, but if we have a choice between existential angst and Twinkies, tonight we're going with the Twinkies.
RATINGS: ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards Blue Man Group Four Stars. We'd take our kids, our friends and our grandkids. It ain't cheap, but it's a huge production and pure entertainment. It's sure to make your brown eyes blue.
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"Blue Man Group"
Golden Gate Theater
Golden Gate Avenue at Market Street, San Francisco
Through June 19
$50-$200
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