“Broadway” as the Superior “Other”: Situating South Korean Theater in the Era of Globalization

“Broadway” as the Superior “Other”:Situating South Korean Theater in the Era ofGlobalization

HYUNJUNG LEE

Introduction

IN CONTEMPORARY SOUTH KOREAN THEATER, THE IDEA OF BROAD-

way evokes visions of magnificent glamor, global success, and thesuperior “Other.” These visions remind Korean audiences of their

nation’s lack of global presence as well as its deeply held desire tocreate a global identity. Two mid-1990s South Korean productionsand their subsequent travels to New York—The Last Empress, themusical (1995), and the nonverbal performance Nanta [Cookin’](1997)—demonstrate how the notion of “Broadway” in South Koreahas transcended its definition as a mere physical location (i.e., a majortheater district in New York City) to become a trope in the conversa-tions around the making of these plays. In this context, as the ulti-mate, superior “Other,” Broadway represents the power to evaluateand criticize and also to praise. For its part, local theater willinglytrusts and relies upon whatever comment this superior “Other” makesabout what it has achieved.

In South Korea, Broadway musicals “had a jump start in acquiringthe specific capacity and implicit charge of projecting a mainstreamsense of “America” (Knapp 8). The power of this immediately popu-lar genre, a “distinctively American and widely influential art form,”remains linked with commerce and the workings of global capital

The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 45, No. 2, 2012© 2012, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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(Knapp 3). In the spirit of “catching up” with Broadway, the globalcultural hegemony, the South Korean productions, their modes ofrepresentations, and the discourses around them conflate “the Broad-way” (also phrased as “distinctively American”) with global achieve-ment. Moreover, they adopt and internalize Broadway as a yardstickof South Korea’s cultural capacity. Broadway manifests in their localcultural arena as the great symbol of affluence and thus as the epit-ome of the global. In this context, the characteristics of “Broadway”form a fantastic, overblown image that stands for the United States(which in turn represents the West) and is viewed as a model of howto become rich and famous.

Ultimately, both of these South Korean productions and theirways of constructing a sense of nation-ness in South Korea illustrate ashift in how the term “the global” is defined there. While the pro-ductions construct scenarios in which the global, as a mythical tool ofachieving national uniqueness, constantly interacts and/or overlapswith the national, the term also comes to designate an idealizeddesire, an “empty signifier,” or even a persistent lack (Lee 55).

Broadway as a Symbol of the Global: The Last Empress andNanta

The Last Empress (1995)1

The Last Empress, a historical drama, is about the tragic murder ofEmpress Myoungsung (a.k.a. Queen Min, 1851–1895) and the conse-quent subordination of the Korean monarchy to Imperial Japan.Working from the center of politics in the royal house, the queenwas an active agent for Korea’s modernization. However, after beingidentified as a threat to Japan’s imperial project of colonizing Korea,she was brutally murdered by Japanese assassins (A-Com, LastEmpress: the Musical, Introduction qtd. in Lee 55). The show, whichprojects Queen Min’s years in the palace, presents her life and deathboth graphically and as analogous to the tragic decline of the Chosun(an old name for Korea) dynasty and the country’s annexation byJapan.

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The musical opens with Queen Min’s coronation and royal mar-riage to King Kojong in 1866, when she pledges both to serve himand to remain the faithful “Mother of the Nation” (Lee 55). The playalso illuminates Queen Min’s private life as she brings a shaman intothe palace to perform a ritual for the conception of a son. Sheembodies her role as Mother of the Nation and outshines Taewongun(her father-in-law, who is also her political rival) to achieve her fullpolitical agency when a son is finally born to her. About two-thirdsinto the play, the audience finds the queen seeking support fromRussia in order to defend Chosun from Japan’s gradual encroachment.Unfortunately, the Japanese assassins invade the queen’s court andstab her to death. The musical ends with a grand finale that stagesQueen Min’s resurrection as she blesses Korea’s eternal prosperity(A-Com, Last Empress: the Musical, Introduction).

The Last Empress was premiered in 1995 by Arts CommunicationInternational (A-Com International), South Korea’s first professionalmusical company founded by Ho-jin Yoon in 1991. Its establishmentwas supported by domestic theater artists and producers who believedthat theater companies in South Korea must become competitive inthe global era, attract investors, and cultivate international markets(A-Com, Last Empress: the Musical, Company).

The tremendous impact and success of Broadway musicalsimported to South Korea, starting in the 1980s, created a strongimpetus for “a Korean version of a Broadway musical”; Yoon accom-plished exactly this with The Last Empress (Lee 54). His nationalisticambition to demonstrate the competitive quality of a South Koreancultural product led him to stage the musical in New York as well asin other western metropolises (Los Angeles, London, and Toronto) inspite of receiving no performance fees from the venues (Lee 54).Yoon’s patriotic commitment was nourished by Korea’s nationalobsession with attaining international attention and its desire fornational development, both illustrated by the government-sponsoreddiscourse of globalization (segyehwa) in the mid-1990s.2

A-Com relied on domestic funding from local audiences, corporatesponsorships, and even government subsidies for the production’sinternational tours. Accordingly, it gained powerful, if not fully suffi-cient, support from mainstream media outlets and major corpora-tions; the New York tour was partially underwritten by the ChosunDaily Newspaper [Chosun Ilbo], the Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS),

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and Samsung Corporation. The South Korean Ministry of Cultureand Tourism funded the London performance expenses in 2002.3

The Last Empress’ New York premiere in 1997 showcased uniquelySouth Korean connections between globalization (i.e., Americaniza-tion) and the local rhetoric of development that had been ushered inby inherent nationalism. As soon as it became the first Korean musi-cal shown on Broadway, the production’s reputation soared at home.Under the rubric of segyehwa, South Korea’s globalization discourse,The Last Empress was feted as an exemplary model that would securethe nation’s fame by promoting Korea’s culture on an internationalstage. For South Korean theater critic Young-hae Noh, The LastEmpress is the “people’s [kukmin] musical” because it represents thenation and has proven the superior quality of South Korean perfor-mance culture as a whole; the product itself proves that Korean per-formance has caught up with the scale of Broadway megamusicals(62).4 Based on this glowing review, the musical still holds a privi-leged position in South Korea; it continues to be staged almost annu-ally and has reaped numerous domestic theater awards. Since itspremiere at the Seoul Performing Arts Center in Korea in 1995, ithas attracted over 920,000 people to 694 performances (as of May2006) (A-Com, Last Empress: the Musical, Company).

South Korean media continually overstate the musical’s accom-plishments. For example, the term “Broadway” is used to misrepre-sent the play’s few nights of a special visiting-tour at a New Yorktheater as an extended-run production. This type of exaggerationexplains how much even the impression of global success appeals todomestic audiences in South Korea. Mainstream media have furtherdeployed the rhetoric of global success by hyping The Last Empress’sinternational travels when it appeared at the Lincoln Center (1997,1998), the Schubert and Kodak theaters in Los Angeles (consecutivelyin 1998, 2003), the Apollo Hammersmith Theater in London’s WestEnd (2002), and the Hummingbird Centre in Toronto (2004). Earlyin 1997, in anticipation of the premiere in New York City, SouthKorean mass media ubiquitously highlighted how “this Korean musi-cal” was about to be launched on Broadway (Kim, Soon-duk 22).

These overstatements reflect the extent to which South Koreans ingeneral conflate the very word “Broadway” with desires for global rec-ognition and success. The Korean mainstream media’s obsessiveendorsement of “Broadway” has been further augmented by South


Korea’s nationalistic desire for the global development of its culturalindustry.

In its entirety, South Korean discourse about the musical’s travelto the West describes a showcase wherein developmentalism, dis-guised as glamorous globalization and national success, appeals toKorean citizens. A-Com’s mission statement indicates how The LastEmpress would garner both official and mainstream support in SouthKorea via its rhetoric of national development:

The World shouts “Amazing” to the development of Korean musi-cal market. By our rapid development, we are encouraged to go tothe 150 billion markets all around world. Now we need to buildour market stronger and to develop the Korean musical’s reputa-tion higher in the world….As a leading production, A-Com willgo forward to the world to show the power of Korean musical. (A-Com, Last Empress: the Musical, Greeting)

Although a shortage of guarantees from the performance venuesoverseas forced it to rely on domestic funding, the company’s deter-mination to garner global attention prompted it to take the showabroad. However, “most of the New York audiences turned out to beKoreans or Korean-Americans, compared to non-Koreans at a ratio ofabout 9:1” (Kim, Mi-kyung 15 qtd. in Lee 62). Thus the overstatedstory of global success is revealed as an “empty signifier,” merelyfunctioning as an expression of an unfulfilled desire (Lee 62). Conse-quently, the idea of “Broadway” has become both a desirable modeland an invincible opponent that South Koreans should nonethelesspursue and defeat in a war of musicals.

Global as a Fetish

Due to constant exaggeration, the notion of the global as demon-strated by domestic media coverage of overseas performances of TheLast Empress becomes a fetishistic concept, a glamorous entity whosemeaning is externally assigned. Nonetheless, at certain moments theglobal is eclipsed by or conflated with the national, albeit the latterbecomes grotesquely magnified in the name of national uniquenessand capacity. For example, under the label of “national culture,” theshamanic rite scene (Sutaegut) in The Last Empress was newly includedat the 1997 New York premiere, the production’s first performance

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in a western theatrical venue. Here, the female shaman character,Jinryung-gun, enters the stage with her entourage of female dancersto perform the ritual that will assure the conception of a son by thechildless queen. Unaccompanied by the orchestra, Jinryung-gun inher bright robes chants piercing, elaborate incantations as she dancesin a circular motion at center stage, fiercely ringing the bells in herhands. Meanwhile, the queen is placed at the rear side of the stage,absorbed in the ritual, poignantly praying for a prince. As the riteclimaxes, Jinryung-gun and her acolytes whirl faster and faster. Thestage blacks out as the shaman shrieks, “I hear a baby boy crying!”

This scene was a spectacular commodity separate from the field oforganic folklore, even though the producer decided to feature Sutae-gut, the ritual as an example of authentic Korean folk-art perfor-mance. Obviously, the notion of authenticity in this context becomesproblematic because it is forced to assume an essential, stagnant, uni-tary composition of national culture and identity. According to direc-tor Yoon,

We conceived The Last Empress as a way of refashioning a part of“our culture” and promoting it in the world market. From nowon, it is crucial for one to repackage their own national culture,provoking financial interest in the global market. This is our wayto build a “cultural nation” [munhwa kuka] in order to fully arriveat a “world-class society.” Otherwise, we will remain as a countrythat is “culturally subordinated.” To refashion and generate a crea-tive artwork that can compete in the top tier of the global culturaleconomy, [with The Last Empress] we injected “a uniquely Koreanspirit” within a “Western” framework called the “Broadway-stylemusical.” (Yoon, Ho-jin, “Venturing” qtd. in Lee 61)

By drawing upon the “unique characteristics” of “our culture” andthe consequent effects of Korean-ness, Yoon employs traditional staterhetoric that sets up a masculine competition against the West’sencroaching wave of emasculating globalization. He then directlyappeals to “our national culture” and “a unique Korean spirit” as hetries to differentiate the special interiority of a national form.

The shamanic rite scene both tries to “prove the power of spiritual-ity and makes visible an intangible aspect of Korean culture” (Lee58). The ways that the ritual has been adapted and stylized, which onone level merely attempt to fit it into the framework of a western


musical, also figuratively demonstrate the kind of global culturalcommodity the director is pursuing. The lighting effects, which cre-ate an Asiatic mood via innumerable images of floating lanternsagainst a bright red background, fuse the shamanic ritual withBroadway musical style.

The musical’s overall visual effect, exemplified by sumptuous decorand authentic touches such as the shamanic rite scene, gives tangibleshape to the desire for globalization harbored by its South Koreanaudiences. As a means of reinventing the particularity of Korean tra-ditional culture, even an authentic tradition such as Sutaegut has beenrefashioned into an image compatible with the process of globaliza-tion. As the process cloaks this and other indigenous, once-commoncultural devices within the glamor of a Broadway-style musical andthe performance’s dazzling array of refashioned Korean-ness, imagesfamiliarly exotic to its home audience conflate with the play’s label ofthe so-called “first Korean musical on Broadway.”

In this context, copious onstage decor and exquisite shamanic rit-ual can be only stand-ins, fetish objects. The show’s frequent displaysof finely choreographed dancing, grandiose sets, and extravagant cos-tumes barely compensate for the experienced/imagined emasculationof Chosun within the dramatic narrative. Yet, apart from the tragicnarrative, domestic audiences are prompted to feel as if theseuniquely Korean aesthetics, glamorously refashioned, are in them-selves true, national qualities that will advance their country onto theworld stage.

Domestic newspapers have insisted that the musical has beenattracting global attention since its first New York tour. This inflatednews has increased the desire of average South Koreans for globaladvancement, and its celebratory tone has encouraged domestic audi-ences to perceive The Last Empress as something auspicious. However,it is clear that the producers, media, and domestic reviewers haveexaggerated their impressions in order to validate and promote theshow’s ostensible global success (Lee 62). For example, the main-stream Chosun Daily Newspaper states that

The Western spectators gaped with amazement at the Shaman Ritescene. The fantastic scenic arrangement appealed to the Westernersfor its exotic features. The shamanic scene was greatly acknowledged

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as a model of a successful translation—presenting a Korean tradi-tional cultural form via a modern musical. (Kim, Ki-chul 44)

This obsessively endorsed notion of “global success” is an emptyrhetoric typical of the nation-state’s drive to achieve developmentalmobilization. The producers must have imagined that their visualizationof a bygone era and lavish staging of Korea’s native culture would becrucial for the play’s entrance onto the global stage.

For The Last Empress, lavish costumes and set designs, along withthe shamanic rite scene newly inserted for the New York premiere,have been made visible as fetishistic objects through collective obses-sion with “the Broadway” (a.k.a. “the global”) and the successimplied by the term. The refashioned shamanic rite in particular,conceived as a model example of authentic Korean-ness, convincesdomestic viewers that the production has been designed to achieverecognition on the global stage. This fetishization of distinctiveKorean culture is easily construed as the reification of globalizationideology and, in reaction, the objectification of desire.

Nanta (1997)

Nanta (to strike recklessly) was created as a response to the nonverbalperformances that have been popular in New York and other westernurban areas since the early 1990s; these include Tubes by Blue ManGroup, Stomp, Tap Dogs, and De La Guarda (Song 65). Its plot is sim-ple: four chef-characters generically named Head Chef, Sexy Guy,Female, and Nephew make noise and music based on samulnori (a tra-ditional Korean performance ritual) with kitchen utensils such as kni-ves, cutting boards, and pots and pans. These chefs have an hour toprepare all the dishes for a wedding banquet as their Manager keeps aclose watch on the time and their work. As they cook, the chefs per-form slapstick comedies, martial arts (such as kungfu), and variousAsian acrobatics. The show, which uses real food throughout, reliesstrongly on audience participation.

As the first Korean-brand nonverbal performance, Nanta has beensuccessful in both domestic and global markets, attracting local andforeign audiences since its premiere in October 1997 at Ho-Am ArtHall in Seoul. Its status as the longest-running entertainment showin Korean theater history enabled Seung-hwan Song (the show’s


producer and CEO of PMC, Nanta’s production company) to openthe 318-seat Nanta Theater in 2000—a dedicated venue in Seoul thatis also the “first standing performing-arts theater [a theater exclu-sively for Nanta performance] in South Korea” (PMC, Nonverbal Per-formance Nanta, History).

Song, long known as a TV-drama/theater actor in South Korea,began his career as a child actor in 1965. The longevity of his careergave him ample reason to criticize the conditions faced by SouthKorean theater companies, such as insufficient budgets and profits.Song’s objections to such financial issues as well as his desire to createa successful business model for the performing arts in Koreaprompted him to adopt a corporate system at PMC and also to widenthe audience pool for domestic theater by expanding the market over-seas (Song 10–25).

After a successful domestic starting run, Nanta fared well in theoverseas cultural market. It received a best performance award at itsinternational debut, in 1999 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival whereit was presented under an English title, Cookin’. The show was alsoselected to open both the 2003 and 2004 seasons at Broadway’s NewVictory Theater and was performed at the Off-Broadway MinettaLane Theater from spring 2004 to spring 2005 (PMC, Nonverbal Per-formance Nanta, Introduction). These successes, and the show’s reputa-tion as a Broadway-run product and as the sophisticated, Koreanversion of Stomp, in turn increased Nanta’s attractiveness to touristaudiences from Asian countries, especially Japanese and Taiwanesetourists in Seoul.

Performing Cultural Tourism for Asian Audiences

In part, the image of Nanta as a global show has been maintained bythe number of Asian tourists visible during audience participation.The act of cooking, the production’s main theme, creates a spectaclethat invites its audience to join together in an act of consump-tion. The universality of food, together with Nanta’s traditionalKorean setting (a wedding ceremony and banquet), endows the showwith a higher level of understanding that readily spans cultures. Interms of cultural legibility, Nanta’s staging elements clearly high-light its role as a promoter of Korean cultures rather than as a pure

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entertainment vehicle that happens to have a traditional setting. Boththe content and the iconography have been designed as an aestheticbrand of tourism advertisement that displays and promotes appealingcultural commodities.

Therefore, the show encourages its spectators to perceive the actof cooking as the gateway to a full cultural experience and evento perceive it as the totality of that experience. Nanta’s mainthemes of food and cooking work as a catalyst that binds the per-formance and foreign audience members in particular ways: theimages of food and acts of cooking allow engagement with Koreanculture because audience participation confers immediate access tothe onstage referents. Also, to increase this affinity as well as toclearly display the underlying motif of Asian commonality, thechoice of food shown onstage is derived from Asian cultures butis abridged to a few signature dishes such as dumplings, bowls ofChinese-style soup, Beijing Duck (actually presented as a stuffed-animal replica), and teppanyaki (meat slices cooked on an irongriddle)—familiar dishes that can be quickly identified by Asiansand thereby draw them into the performance. Such foods can alsobe quickly consumed and heartily enjoyed by western audiences,under the category of “exotic Asian cuisine.” Given the fact thatonly bindaettok (Korean pancakes) were emphasized in Nanta’s1997 premiere version, it is clear that the post-1998 versions havebeen deliberately shaped in response to the growth of internationalaudiences (Arko).

Nanta employs audience participation as a crucial way of establish-ing the performance as a successful tourist commodity, a sort of pan-Asian festival. The performance prioritizes foreign audiences byasking them to participate in the soup-tasting scene and the dump-ling-challenge scene. Five or six audience members, predominantlyfrom Taiwan, Japan, and Indonesia, are prechosen before the curtainrises. Then, about one-third into the performance, the chefs “decide”to ask two audience members to taste the soup they have just madeonstage. Two of the chefs move downstage, into the audience, andescort a pair of foreign spectators (a male and a female) back onto thestage. The two “volunteers” briefly introduce their names and nation-alities. Next, as these audience-participants taste their bowls ofready-made soup, the chefs help them put on simplified versions oftraditional Korean wedding attire and headpieces. The soup-tasting


scene suddenly turns out to be an abridged representation of a tradi-tional Korean wedding ritual.

Similarly, the audience-participants in the dumpling-challengescene fill important roles in constructing Nanta as a performancethat aspires to achieve at least some of its efficacy through ad-libbed audience interactions. Approximately halfway through theperformance, the chefs divide the audience into two groups andname them Red Team and Blue Team. Across the back of thestage, a large banner appears: “Dumpling Challenge” in Korean,English, Japanese, and Chinese. The chefs again escort two non-Korean audience members (also prechosen) from each team onto thestage, where they will race one another in making dumplings. Theother Red and Blue team members (i.e., the rest of the audience)are encouraged to cheer their proxies competing onstage. First, thechefs give the dumpling-makers brief directions and a little assis-tance. Then, after having set a competitive mood among the seatedaudience members as well as the onstage participants, they quietlyexit. The participants are startled when they discover that they arealone onstage, but they carry on nonetheless, aided by cheeringfrom their teams. The game ends when the chefs reappear to selectthe winner.

These supposedly spontaneous interactions, activated by Asianaudience-participants, assist in the process of branding and promotingNanta as a performance that aspires to become a pan-Asian festival.For Korean audiences, these scenarios created by other Asian audi-ence-participants further promote and confirm Nanta as an attractiveKorean global product enjoyed by foreigners. The sight of such audi-ence-participants (mainly Asian tourists) has been deliberately devisedby the producers, who put Korean audiences and non-Korean audi-ence-participants on display for each other in order to convinceKorean spectators of the show’s power to enact or even mobilizeinter-Asian connections. All of this is done in the name of Nanta as“the first contemporary Asian performance to open its door to off-Broadway theater” (Yu 14).

South Korean news articles have strongly confirmed Nanta’s suc-cessful marketing to foreign tourists in Korea as well as the show’spopularity among such visitors:

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The Nanta Theater maintains a steady revenue stream because80% of its audiences are foreign tourists visiting Seoul. Amongthem, 50% are Japanese tourists, 20% are tourists from Taiwanand others from Southeast Asia, and 10% are from other countriessuch as the U.S. or Europe. (Kim, Seung-hyun 21)

The presence of Asian audiences and their role in the process ofKorean national brand-marketing of Nanta are undoubtedly signifi-cant. However, Asian spectators (who symbolize all of Asia in thiscontext) function merely as the middle ground for a Korean productto make its leap onto the global stage. Song even proudly asserts that“just like we [Koreans] import Broadway productions, other Asiancountries will import Korean productions” (qtd. in Rno n.p.). Thisrhetoric echoes Korean rhetoric of cultural nationalism that actuallydesires the nation’s cultural industry to become more like Broadway.Thus the presence of Asian audiences in Korea functions as a rehearsalfor the product’s ultimate goal: Broadway audiences. As Songexplains, “[W]e first need to test the product and its reception in theAsian regional market; if we accomplish our goal here, then the doorto Broadway will open” (qtd. in Yoon, Seung-Ah n.p.).

While Nanta’s marketing strategy underscores the value of Asianregional connections, its configuration of “Asian culture” is alsoappropriated by and/or forged in the performance’s production, pro-motion, and consumption. Moreover, all of these carefully craftedplans and strategies are undertaken for Nanta to be successfully recog-nized as the Korean-brand entertainment product on Broadway. Theshow apparently celebrates cultural fusion among various Asian coun-tries. However, at the same time, Nanta’s pastiche of stereotypicalAsian cultural images serves as a stepping-stone for its successfulentrance onto Broadway—under the nationalistic justification that aKorean brand is being recognized on the competitive global stage.

Broadway—Final Destination, not Abstract Symbol of theGlobal

Yoon, the director of The Last Empress, obsessively aspired toward theglobal; by contrast, Nanta actively implemented the Broadway enter-tainment system (e.g., successful marketing to foreign tourists) to


turn a profit and launch a substantial brand-making strategy. UnlikeThe Last Empress’ status as the first Korean musical on Broadway,Nanta did not endorse such a designation as an empty signifier or avague symbol of national integrity and success. Instead, although“Broadway” still remains a great fantasy for Nanta, here the term isutilized as an effective device for increasing name-value and profit.In this way, the concept of “Broadway” becomes a tool for enhancingthe production’s regional (i.e., Asian) visibility, as the first contempo-rary Asian performance to succeed on the real Broadway.

Despite the fact that Nanta’s regional success and ties with otherAsian countries express South Korea’s national desire to be at the cen-ter of Asia, Nanta illustrates how South Korean discourse on global-ization has gradually transcended the dichotomy between Korea andthe West via performance elements that—by creating inviting quali-ties of Korean culture in the context of other Asian cultures—presentpossibilities for Asian solidarity that were almost absent from earlierdiscourse about The Last Empress and the related issues of SouthKorea’s globalization. Nevertheless, Nanta still identifies “Broadway”as its ultimate goal and affirms that performing Nanta on Broadwaysymbolizes its success.

Some aspects of the performance, however, indicate its openness tothe outside world and to interactions with different cultures andaudiences, particularly in the context of the regional. This inclusivenature contrasts strikingly with the exclusionary rationale of The LastEmpress, which actually reduces the range of the play’s possible mean-ings outside its national boundary. Contrary to The Last Empress,which was hyped as the first Korean musical on Broadway, Nanta’spromotional strategies (such as promoting it to travel agencies inJapan and Taiwan for inclusion in their Korean tour packages) showthat its producer is neither simply obsessed with the term “Broad-way,” nor does he identify performing Nanta on Broadway as anabstract symbol of national development. Furthermore, Nanta’s regio-nal success in terms of both financial sustainability and attendance bypeople from different countries indicates its efficient combination ofnational, regional, and global elements.

Ironically, the idea of Asian commonality illustrated via the show’suse of Asian signature dishes and martial arts demonstrates how theproduction had both to preserve and adapt the longstanding popularstereotype of Asian racial homogeneity—not only as part of its sales

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pitch in the West, but for its US audience in particular. The Koreantitle was changed to Cookin’ because “the original title could appealto the audiences in the Asian regions without any problem, for theyare familiar with the Chinese characters, but it would sound toostrange for the Western audiences” (Song 133). For Song, who wasoperating in a different context from the producers of The LastEmpress, Broadway was not an abstract symbol for global success.Although Song considered Broadway to be Nanta’s ultimate destina-tion, the location was for him also a specific area where financial prof-its could be reaped. Thus, Song’s ways of reaching Cookin’s NewYork audience reveal concrete marketing procedures and thoughtfulsensitivity to the play’s intercultural reception, rather than routine orrote adherence to exclusivist ideas of Korean traditional culturaluniqueness.

Nanta’s performance elements such as dumplings, kungfu, andteppanyaki (Japanese-style cuisine or Benihana) easily translated intopopular pan-Asian images that helped enhance the play’s attractive-ness to Broadway and its audiences. As a way of targeting Americanspectators, Nanta’s fusion of Asian images and themes resonates withAsian stereotypes circulating in the US media. Consequently, theshow allows American audiences to immerse themselves in a manifes-tation of Asian culture that is complex but also seemingly authenticand easily accessible. For example, images of martial arts (usuallysymbolized by Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, and kungfu), the Samurai, andBenihana constitute most Americans’ engagement with Chinese andJapanese culture—and Nanta easily allows western viewers to perceivethe show in similar terms. Song explains the vital importance ofmartial arts in Nanta as follows: “Prior to our departure to Broadway,we enhanced the martial arts scene because it is something that willgreatly attract the American audiences. We invited a Chinese martialarts specialist a month before our departure for the performers’ extratrainings” (Chung 15).

Song also describes how he contracted with The Broadway AsiaCompany (BAC), a “management, production, licensing, and consul-tation company concentrated on performing arts projects between theUS, Europe, and the Asia Pacific Region” (Broadway Asia Company)and reveals how he relied on its agents’ comments and its show doc-tors’ advice to reshape Nanta into a spectacle more suitable for Broad-way. Although he confesses that BAC’s commissions for Nanta’s


Broadway promotions were steep, he also notes the indispensabilityof retaining BAC and affirms that all of these efforts were justified:

In the fall of 1998, we signed a contract with The Broadway AsiaCompany about giving them the right to distribute Nanta in vari-ous parts of the world except Korea. This contract was made undercondition that aside from paying them 15% of the total earningsas a commission, we must also reimburse the entire expense theyspend on promoting Nanta….Moreover, they suggested that weneed to revise the performance by hiring the show doctors undercommission at The Broadway Asia Company: Lynne Taylor-Corb-ett added elements of slapstick comedy to the performance; magicskits, martial arts, as well as short stunt scenes were added by cir-cus specialist Lawrence F. Pisoni; and Marcia Dodge, a comedydoctor, intensified the food-show parts by affixing a teppanyakistyle to the performance. (116–19)

In fact, the poster for Nanta’s performance during the 2004–2005season at The Minetta Lane Theater illustrates how the showdeployed Asian stereotypes already functioning as popular US culturalproducts as a way of targeting Broadway audiences (Figure 1).

As shown in the poster, Nanta on Broadway aims to appeal toAmerican audiences through its fusion of Asian cultural symbols thatare already iconic in the West. This outlandish but not-too-unfamiliarvisual spectacle presents the five characters, in full costume and exag-gerated, cartoonish poses. The poster’s bright yellow background andvividly colored show logo in red, the four chef-characters’ facial expres-sions and body postures, together with the Manager’s stunned, comicexpression, recall typical elements of popular Asian slapstick comediesand thereby visually place the show somewhere between The Iron Chef(a Japanese cooking show popular on US television) and Hong Kong-produced martial arts films. Accordingly, the words “Benihana” and“Jackie Chan,” which appear embedded in a quote represent theAsiatic nature and quality of this show. “Benihana” indicates Japanese,teppanyaki-style cuisine where the food is prepared tableside, before thediners; it is one of the well-known faces of Japanese cuisine withinAmerican popular concept-variations of Japanese food. The referenceto Jackie Chan signifies that Nanta presents martial arts or otherkungfu-style actions, albeit comically. Nanta’s promoters have obvi-ously relied on the fact that martial arts (symbolized by the name of a

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FIGURE 1. A poster for Nanta [Cookin’] at The Minetta Lane Theater. Courtesyof PMC Production. Reproduced by permission. Copyright PMC Production.


Chinese actor) present the global currencies of action and violence andhave long been the principal type of popular Asian kungfu-stylecultural product in the United States. Not only does Nanta’s employ-ment of popular Asian cultural elements demonstrate the marketabil-ity of racial caricature, such stereotypes aid this foreign product’s entryinto the United States’ crowded performing entertainment market.

Like the producer of The Last Empress, Song explains his personaldream of introducing and promoting his production on Broadwayand expresses his excitement after Nanta’s 2003 premiere: “LaunchingNanta on Broadway has been the one and only dream of my life, andit became true at last” (172). However, “Broadway” in Song’s case hasbeen concretely conceived as a profitable market instead of an emptysignifier for South Korea’s global cultural advancement.

While Nanta’s key objective is to pursue Broadway, it also aims toemphasize the importance of Asian regional connections via the thea-trical visualization of Asian cultural fusion—in South Korea, forAsian audiences, as well as in America for western audiences. Conse-quently, both the positive and negative representations of pan-Asiancultures in Nanta work multidirectionally: they are tools for high-lighting the performance’s eligibility in the West, signs of Asiansolidarity, stepping-stones for the production to achieve global visi-bility and success, and ways to envision Asian cultural sharing andconnections.

Conclusion

As much as the producers of The Last Empress and Nanta wanted toemulate the global products of Broadway, they also sought to retainthe local by ensuring that South Korea’s first Broadway musicalwould be authentically Korean. Given the numerous foreign produc-tions flowing into South Korea from the 1980s on, they sought toreverse that trend. In addition to being a model for emulation,Broadway must also have been an immediate threat/competitor aswell as a source of frustration for local theater producers. Indeed, thenominal success of The Last Empress and of its producers very muchdepended on its “Broadway” reputation and the New York Timesreviews. By contrast, while for Nanta Broadway has been a great fan-tasy, its promotional strategies and marketing process have shown

336 Hyunjung Lee

that its producers did not endorse “Broadway” as an empty signifier.Nonetheless, in almost every circumstance of both productions, “theBroadway” or “the global” is shown to be deeply embedded in theKorean consciousness as the desirable destination.

South Korean mainstream media endorsement of “the Broadway”in its coverage of these productions’ New York tours was neitherabout how each production fared in this particular venue nor a trueunderstanding of the location; instead, “the Broadway” continued tofunction more like a seal of approval that guarantees the advanceddevelopment of South Korean culture. A huge number of SouthKoreans would happily see these plays because they once went toBroadway. Broadway’s approbation effectively allays any doubt aboutthe productions’ quality and assures an attractive reputation for both.Korean audiences are able to feel proud of these productions, as wellas of their country and themselves; from their seats, they can experi-ence the American Dream and envision their own success in the con-text of a global narrative and index of prestige.

As a comprehensive reflection of the global powerhouse (i.e., theUS), “the Broadway” also interacts with other definitions and imagesof global hegemonic entities. The term can function as another namefor Hollywood, the Ivy League, the New York Times, CNN, OECD,and so forth. With these global entities as a set of evaluative criteriaor immanent goals, Koreans constantly remind themselves to striveto emulate and catch up with these power structures that are clearlyjustified and idealized as validation of personal as well as nationaldevelopment and interests.

Notes

1. For further discussion on The Last Empress, see Hyunjung Lee, “Performing Korean-ness on

the Global Stage: Ho-Jin Yoon’s Musical The Last Empress.”

2. The nationalistic policy discourse of segyehwa (literally, globalization) was declared in 1994

by the Young-sam Kim administration. This intense globalization discourse operated under

a vision of developmentalism that championed greater efficiency for society as a whole (gov-

ernment, corporations, and citizens) as a vehicle for South Korea’s continuous growth, and

sought national reform as a way to achieve such efficiency. This developmental nationalism

demanded that South Korea, through globalization, leap forward and become one of the

world’s advanced nations. See Young-sam Kim, Korea’s Reform and Globalization, qtd. in Lee

56.

3. The data is based on the musical’s program brochure.

4. Translations from the Korean sources are my own, unless otherwise noted.


Works Cited

A-Com International. “Last Empress: the Musical. Company.” Trans.A-Com International. n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2009.

——. “Last Empress: the Musical. Greeting.” Trans. A-Com Interna-tional. n.d. Web. 8 Sept. 2007.

——. “Last Empress: the Musical. Introduction.” Trans. A-Com Interna-tional. n.d. Web. 19 June 2009.

Arko Arts Library & Information Center. “Script Archive.” Nanta.n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2009.

Broadway Asia Company. “About Us.” 2008. Web. 11 Jan. 2008.Chung, Sang-young. “Martial Arts Boom.” Hangyorae 4 Oct. 2004:

15. Print.Kim, Young-sam. Korea’s Reform and Globalization. Seoul: Korean

Overseas Information Service, 1996. Print.Kim, Ki-chul. “The Last Empress Shakes New York.” Chosun Daily 18

Aug. 1997a: 44. Print.Kim, Mi-kyung. “The Last Empress’ first Broadway Performance.”

Hangyorae Newspaper 18 Aug. 1997b: 15. Print.Kim, Seung-hyun. “Expanding Nanta Theater.” Munhwa 30 June

2003: 21. Print.Kim, Soon-duk. “The Last Empress, the Number One Culture-Export.”

Dong-ah Daily News 9 May 1997c: 22. Print.Knapp, Raymond. The American Musical and the Formation of National

Identity. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2005. Print.Lee, Hyunjung. “Performing Korean-ness on the Global Stage:

Ho-Jin Yoon’s Musical The Last Empress.” Theater Research Interna-tional 35.1 (2010): 54–65. Print.

Noh, Younghae. “Exploring the ‘Kukmin’ musicals of the late 1990sSouth Korea: The Last Empress and Linie 1—Das Musikal.” Musicand Culture 3.3 (2000): 61–90. Print.

PMC. “Nonverbal Performance Nanta. History.” Trans. PMC. n.d.Web. 11 Apr. 2009.

PMC. “Nonverbal Performance Nanta. Introduction.” Trans. PMC.n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2009.

Rno, Hyun. “Aiming for the New Korean Wave with Nanta.” DailyEconomic 12 Sept. 2006: n.p.

Song, Seung-hwan. A Man Who Smacked the World: Seung-hwan Song,the Culture CEO. Seoul: Bookian, 2003. Print.

Yoon, Ho-jin. “Venturing The Last Empress on Broadway and itsachievements.” Seoul, Korea: Kukmin University, 12 Nov. 1998.Lecture.

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Yoon, Seung-Ah. “Song, Seung-hwan at the Center of Korean Cul-tural Industry.” Korea Economic 12 Feb. 2001: n.p. Print.

Yu, In-hwa. “Song, Seung-hwan, the Nanta Creator.” Kyunghyang 03Jan. 2005: 14. Print.

Hyunjung Lee is an assistant professor in the Division of English at Nany-ang Technological University, Singapore. Lee’s research interests includetheater and performance studies, literature, and popular culture. Her articleshave been appeared in Korea Journal, Theater Research International, and Situa-tions: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context. She is now working on a mono-graph entitled Global Fetishism: Performing the Global in Contemporary SouthKorean Theater.


Documents

“Broadway” as the Superior “Other”: Situating South Korean Theater in the Era of Globalization