Fringe review: Karen Houge – Dreamgirl
In a profound, playful, and compelling hour, Karen Houge tests the limits of our trust in Dreamgirl. ★★★★★
Dreamgirl starts with a proposition: how much do we trust a tall, blonde Norwegian woman with blue eyes and a ludicrous (though fabulous) white feather headpiece? Do we trust her with our children? Our passport information? To fly a plane?
Karen Houge is someone who looks a ‘certain’ way; this helps her through life in ways she didn’t fully understand, until one day, she decided to join a group of refugees as they journeyed through Europe.
To her right on the small Gallery stage is a table with a bowl of fruits and vegetables. Houge calls this her ‘buffet’. Shortly afterwards though we learn that this is how she sees humanity, as an array of different fruits and vegetables with special qualities. To her, for example: her mother and Norwegians in general are potatoes, whilst apparently Australians are carrots.
The simple metaphor has particular resonance given that we’re seated at SA’s Migration Museum, and as we entered the theatre, we walked on bricks that tell you the name, date of arrival and country of origin of migrants from all over the world, who now call themselves Australian.
Houge has a captivating charm and is endlessly watchable. Even as some moments don’t fully land on the audience, or the occasional technical misadventure breaks up the pace, Houge has a graceful and joyous presence that ensures that we stay fully engaged with her theatrical experiment.
Together, the audience creates their ideal ‘Dream Camp’; a play on Peace Camp, which Houge attended as a teenager. As someone who went to UN Youth Camp around the same age and encountered some highly enthusiastic young people who were keen to make their mark on the world, I felt at once attacked and seen.
The point of her allegory is clear; we’re all from somewhere, but we’re building this experience together.
Houge employs a series of interactive games and anecdotes throughout that help us to question the assumptions we make about someone based on the colour of their skin, voice, or gender. To avoid spoiling, all I’ll say is that Houge takes constant care of the audience and invites you to express your creativity without judgement.
As citizen of a country that seems to be 20 years ahead of other Western nations in one grisly metric — the way we treat asylum seekers — I am immensely glad Houge decided to bring this show to Adelaide instead of her originally intended clown burlesque.
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Perhaps next year though, if things change, I’ll catch that one too.
Karen Houge: Dreamgirl continues at the Gallery in the Courtyard of Curiosities at Migration Museum until March 16
Read more 2025 Adelaide Fringe coverage here on InReview