A Dodgeball Named Desire review (Melbourne Fringe Festival)

You've got to hand it to Bloomshed. They have proven themselves time and time again to be one of the most innovative, bold, daring and creative theatre makers around. Too much? Absolutely not, and with their new show A Dodgeball Named Desire they continue to reign supreme. Using Tennessee William' near 80 year-old play A Streetcar Named Desire, Bloomshed explore the competitive nature between the performing arts and the sporting industries, and if there's any chance of these two co-existing. All set in a dodgeball arena. Flores para los muertos? Indeed.

On one side of the court we have our dainty and frail Blanches dressed in old, withered white gowns. On the other, we have the Stanleys, who happen to be extremely fit and very much ready for a fight. While Streetcar is a sharp critique of how society and its attitudes restricted women's lives, A Dodgeball Named Desire uses the dodgeball scenario as a way to highlight how government and institutions are restricting and suffocating the performing arts and not giving them their due credit.

Bloomshed are preparing for an epic bloodbath with A Dodgeball Named Desire (Melbourne Fringe Festival)

Bloomshed is back at Melbourne Fringe Festival with its unique take on classic literature, this time turning its attention to the work of Tennessee Williams. But any expectations on what A Dodgeball Named Desire will be about should be dropped right now, unless you already suspected the ensemble will go up against a sub-elite AFL team in a game of dodgeball. We caught up with one of the brains behind Bloomshed, Anna Louey, to discuss this show and how these ideas formulate.

"Bloomshed as a theatre company is always thinking of the next show to develop, but we can also stew on a suggestion for years before it comes to life," she tells me. "In March of 2022, we met together for an intensive development of A Dodgeball Named Desire and knew that we wanted to make something about sport and theatre, and the colliding world in which theatre becomes sport. We had to set this aside to focus on our season of Paradise Lost in July, but revisited Dodgeball in October through the support of Darebin Arts Speakeasy. During this development, we realised that we were serious about the show and committed to buying a stack of dodgeballs that were the official size and weight as per international rules. We weren’t messing around. It meant hours of pounding each other with dodgeballs while simultaneously working on the script. A year later, we’re putting it on at fortyfivedownstairs as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival and we can finally whip the balls back out."