Koreaboo
Writer: Michelle Lim Davidson
Director: Jessica Arthur
Belvoir Downstairs Theatre
20 June – 20 July, 2025
Koreaboo, from the fabulous Griffin Theatre Company, is a warm, witty and heart-wrenching two-hander, exploring the search for belonging and the pain of rejection. We wonder how Hannah’s mother can say to her Korean-born but Australian-reared daughter “Hannah not Korean”, when to be acknowledged, to belong, matters so much to her. The explanation as it unfolds is harrowing but the journey is often hilarious.
When adoptee Hannah (Michelle Lim Davidson), walks into her Umma’s 24-hour Mart at midnight, the greeting she hopes for – a hug – is not forthcoming. Umma, wearing a signature mauve terry-towelling sun visor, is furiously fanning away smoke from an elderly drinks fridge, and it is a minute before she sees Hannah – a Koreaboo, or foreigner, in business jacket with outdoors complexion and strong physique. There is awkward conversation and Umma, who prefers Soon Hee, avoids committing to Hannah’s obvious overtures at establishing a relationship or finding out more about her Korean family.
The authentic and readily recognisable stage setting with its colourful multiplicity of goods from plastic flowers to a stacked tower of spam and beckoning cat on the counter, presents us with what is Umma’s world. “Mart is my life,” she says, but not completely. She has a substitute family of garden gnomes, and she loves TV (she has the Sex and the City theme as her ringtone) and listening to K-Pop. And it is through K-Pop that Hannah and her Umma begin to forge a rather rocky relationship as Umma sets her sights on Hannah winning StarPower. She becomes her coach spurring her to victory with comments like “You look like a potato. Stick your bum out more.”
Heather Jeong is superb as Hannah’s Umma. She takes her character through the changes from the dry, matter of fact Mart proprietor determined to keep Hannah at arm’s length to funny K-Pop enthusiast to a woman who can take the limelight and sing with a deep intensity of mountains that “will still bloom in the spring”. She has superb comedic timing but can also touch the heart unbearably when she reveals why she is reluctant to identify herself as Hannah’s Umma.
Davidson, whose lovely, funny and tender script, is brought to life so compellingly under Jessica Arthur’s direction, performs the role of Hannah with moving sincerity. Her body language is so expressive of her bewilderment and hurt at her Umma’s intransigence but her spirit is strong. Driven by a need to know where she fits into Umma’s world she convinces us of the justice of Hannah’s cause – and the many Hannahs of our time.
