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I pray that no one else will ever have to say the words "Balls: The Musical" as often as I have in the weeks leading up to my attending BALLS: The Monster-Catchin' Musical Comédy, the unofficial Pokemon musical that played off-off-Broadway on April 19.
You know how, in some horror movies, the mousy girl protagonist will stab the villain in the chest, then collapse to the ground and sigh, as if the danger is gone? And you're like, "Hey, girl, he's not dead – he's about to get up and swing his machete at your pigtails"? In this scenario, I'm the girl, and the machete is BALLS.
Why'd I do it? Why'd I go? Well, for the same reason Hunter S. Thompson loved mescaline – for the experience. And a part of me hoped that, in attending as press, I might get a beer on the house.
So I got on the subway and took the train down to the venue – Caveat, on Clinton and Stanton St. During my ride, I decided to take a look at BALLS' website for the first time, and I noticed several details that troubled me. There was a quote from Broadway World that said, neither positively nor negatively, that "every performance is a new adventure," suggesting improv elements. Aside from, like, Plutonium, improv is my least favorite element.
Then, I saw that tickets were separated into two categories: splash zone, and non-splash zone. This is when I truly started to sweat. My boyfriend assured me that there was no way my PR contact would seat us in the "splash zone" – I had to take notes, didn't I? We'd probably sit in the back. Nothing to worry about.
Much to worry about
I relaxed a bit as I ambled through the doors at Caveat, making my way toward the snug – and completely packed – dinner theater seating area. BALLS was about to start, so an attendant rushed us to our table. Ah, yes, this view from the back looks good, I thought as we zoomed past it, but why are we still walking?
There, the attendant gestured. "Front and center."
Holy fucking shit. Lightheaded, I slumped into a seat approximately two inches away from the short stage. It was time for BALLS.
If I hadn't taken comprehensive notes, the kind a field researcher might collect while watching scavenger birds divvy up roadkill, I would have only a phantom idea of what BALLS was about. The incessant innuendos and, I think, charmingly constructed, cardboard box monster puppets, or Collectabuddies, otherwise overwhelmed any sense of narrative.
As far as Pokemon parodies go, BALLS felt inadvertent: a "piece of shit" 11-year-old (Teresa Attridge) named Terry by a good-natured audience member (improv!) had to learn to fight with his monster pets instead of exploiting them to fight for him.
Meanwhile, Terry's inventor grandpa – played by Professor Oak voice actor Stuart Zagnit, who performed while reading his lines on a clipboard – was lobotomized into accepting the monster community instead of imprisoning them in, essentially, Pokeballs. An anti-human, power-drunk Collectabuddy called Warlordturtle (whose puppet was voiced and controlled with agility by Harrison Bryan) terrorizes them along the way. In the end, peace prevails.
Throughout their journey, and with completely forgettable music the website says was brought to me by "an Elite Team of award-winning composers spanning Broadway, Hollywood, [...] and TikTok," BALLS had to make me witness unholy things like one monster "made of cum."
Several times, I had wished I'd taken a low-dose edible – or even Hunter S. Thompson's mescaline. At least then I might be able to find love in my heart and not revulsion while witnessing one lonely Collectibuddies puppet sporadically fuck a spring onion. On a higher plane of consciousness, I might take references to characters playing "with their balls," taking "balls to the face," and so on as groundbreaking commentary on the circumference of the moon or something.
BALLS in reality are almost never as impressive as the BALLS in your head, I've learned that. And this musical's BALLS were inflatable beach balls – some of the most unwieldy and plastic-scented of all.
Since I was seated so close to the stage, they constantly flew around my skull and collected at my feet during the carnage of BALLS. On one page of my notebook, I scribbled in hasty handwriting: There are balls in my face and I HATE IT!
I also drew a nearby woman in the audience's expression as it shifted throughout the events of BALLS. It kind of went from a frown to a flat line.
But the rest of the audience – people who would clearly live and die for Squirtle, who cackled with witchy delight every time Zagnit did something goofy – kept me going. Eventually, as surely as the rain falls, I made it to the final act.
This one's for all the balls
The actors handed those of us sitting in the first row plastic vending machine containers with rain ponchos inside, in preparation for the final battle between Gramps and Warlordturtle, which featured a bubble machine and water guns of various intensities. I grimaced. I put on my rain poncho hood. It was too big for my head. I hid my face with my hands. I took a Super Soaker to the chest, and then it was over.
You know the part in some horror movies when the bruised protagonist limps out into the front yard on her broken leg, and it seems like she might finally be safe – if it weren't for your intrinsic knowledge that the killer always comes back? In this scenario, I'm the girl, and the fair use doctrine is the zombie. The BALLS website even credits it plainly and proudly: "'BALLS: The Monster-Catchin’ Musical Comédy' is a musical created by Brandon Zelman and Harrison Bryan as a transformative work under US Fair Use laws. 'BALLS' is not authorized, sanctioned, licensed or endorsed by any [...] underground cock fighting ring."
But, between the cock and the balls, and for all of Balls' schlocky, sloppiness, and even its – God – improv elements, I'm still glad that not even Pokemon's notoriously litigious publisher Nintendo could stop BALLS: The Monster-Catchin’ Musical Comédy from existing on that one, hot Saturday in April.
As I limped out of Caveat's doors – my irises replaced by BALLS, BALLS bouncing around my psyche – I felt proud of Pokemon fans' willingness to take risks and bend fair use for the sake of more deeply engaging in a franchise that they love, and for the pleasure of creativity.
I only wish there weren't so many balls.
