The Blue Man Group has been a phenomenon in this country, going from underground, bizarre, avant-garde performance art to nationally recognized bizarre, avant-garde performance art. Much of that success had to do with its long run in Vegas, first at the Luxor and now in a new space at the Venetian.

Whether it was because some of the originality has worn off, what with their omnipresent television commercials and Jay Leno appearances, or the fact that this is the third time I've seen the show and it hasn't changed all that much, I didn't get the same heady kick that I did the first time I saw it. Mind you, it's still fun and an enormously entertaining evening at the theater, but it just doesn't seem as fresh.

The Blue Man Group consists of three men whose bald-shaven heads are painted cobalt-blue, giving them the air of visitors from another planet. Their antics over the course of their show only reinforce this feeling, bringing to mind some sort of bizarre mix of Buster Keaton, Ernie Kovacs and Mork from Ork.

The show opens with the Blue Men surrounding a pair of tall drums. As one of the guys does the percussion, the other two pour fluorescent paint on top, creating multi-hued sprays that fly up in their faces and cover a conveniently placed canvas. It sounds odd, and it is, but their behavior throughout -- as if they are children discovering some bizarre and surprising new toy -- is still hilarious.

That's the through-line for the entire show -- these serene and expressionless blue beings that come across as super-intelligent yet are perplexed and overwhelmed by something as simple as the wrapping on a snack cake.

Other scenes involve catching marshmallows and paintballs in their mouths, a series of messages printed on three different sets of posters that will have you reading faster than you ever have in your life, a symphony done with Cap'n Crunch cereal, a couple of stunts involving unsuspecting audience members (including the aforementioned snack cake bit), and music that they perform on various drums, pipes and PVC tubing, including a brief medley of everything from Gary Newman to Madonna.

It all ends with giant, twisting, neon tubes dropping from the ceiling and the audience buried in paper streamers. The guy sitting next to me asked, "What's the point of the paper?" and I responded, rightly I believe, that there is no point. It's just all part of the nonsensical weirdness that is the Blue Man Group.

The new theater at the Venetian is nowhere near as comfortable as the groups' former digs at Luxor, with the seats tightly packed both left and right and front to back. I was getting claustrophobic long before I was buried in paper streamers.

If you've never seen the Blue Man Group, you owe it to yourself to experience it at least once. If you have seen them, this new production in a new home is simply not new enough to warrant going back a second (or a third) time, unless you are a fanatic.

Blue Man Group
The Venetian
3355 Las Vegas Blvd. S.
Las Vegas, NV 89109
(877) 883-6423

Price: $85 to $110
Showtimes:

Nightly 7:30 p.m.

Additional show Sat. at 10:30 p.m.

Vegas4Visitors Grade: B+

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