Splash color for creative theater

Meridian (left), captain of the Blue Man Group performers, shows a journalist how to play music with a PVC "piano". [Photo provided to China Daily]

With everyone jumping for joy and reaching for the big balloons rolling from the stage at the end of the show in Guangzhou, it proves that Blue Man Group's happy virus is infectious.

"The show is about things that are universal to people. It's about deeper things we share－our desire to connect with each other, to be creative and to enjoy life," says the captan of the Blue Man Group performers, who calls himself Meridian.

Wearing a poker face and keeping silent throughout the show, the three characters explore the world like newborns full of curiosity and playfulness, juggling with candies and playing music with PVC tubes.

"The character exists in every person," says David Bray, the show's director. "When people walk out of the theater, they start to see the world in a different way through the eyes of a child. For example, they will see the potential of a mundane glass table to be a musical instrument and begin to create something."

The audience is a huge part of the show and "kind of like the fourth blue character", says Tony Aguirre, the show's musical director.