In ‘Balls,’ Billie Jean and Bobby Come Out Swinging
Jesse GreenJanuary 24, 2018:
The first game of the first set of the so-called Battle of the Sexes — the $100,000 winner-take-all tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in 1973 — is marvelously reproduced in a new play called “Balls.” The action proceeds in real time, shot by shot, perfectly synchronized to a soundtrack of racket tapping, score keeping, sneaker squeaking and thwacks.
Unfortunately, there are 27 games to go.
One thing I have to say for “Balls,” which opened on Wednesday at 59E59 Theater, is that it has … a lot of nerve. Plays about sports are not often very good, plays about tennis even less so, and this particular contest — recently the subject of the film “Battle of the Sexes” — would seem to be overmined. Even if stage directors can invoke the audience’s imagination to fill in the blanks, filling in so many gets tiring fast.
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