Transnational flows, exchanges and other cultural processes of interweaving have shaped theatre practices globally for centuries. During most of the twentieth century, outside influences contributed one-sidedly to the modernization of the performing arts in Korea. These influences included Japanese and Western genres transferred in the colonial era (1910–45), commercial US musicals imported after the Korean War (1950–3), and American and European avant-garde theories creatively received in the 1970s and 1980s. Since the 1990s, the official policy of segyehwa (‘globalization in a Korean way’, p. 30) facilitated multilateral exchanges through international festivals and artistic collaborations. As a result, the last decades saw an increase on the world market of theatre productions from South Korea.

Against this background, Lee Hyunjung untangles the various intersections of corporate capital, government policies and nationalist ideology that have shaped this ‘transnational theatre’ from the late 1990s until the present day. Through analyses of key productions, their marketing strategies and press reactions, Lee presents a compelling case: theatre in Korea today must find productive ways to tackle both the ‘demands for globalization and efforts to reclaim and justify the value of tradition and national identity’ (p. 3).

In Chapter 1 the author presents a concept of ‘global fetishism’ (p. 13) that effectively captures how commercial agendas, postcolonial desires and an ambivalent relation to Korea's cultural heritage influence both production and reception of theatre that performs the nation. For example, the overtly nationalist mega-project The Last Empress (premiere 1995), discussed in Chapter 2, bombed off-Broadway in New York but was nonetheless successfully promoted as ‘the first Korean musical on Broadway’ at home (p. 43). In the non-verbal cook-and-drum show Nanta (1996) addressed in Chapter 3, the removal of language barriers and abundant opportunities for audience participation evoked a ‘pan-Asian solidarity’ that opened up new cultural markets in the region (pp. 63–4). Kim Min-gi's Line 1 (1994), adapted from a German rock musical revue and featured in Chapter 4, drew local audiences with its focus on social issues in Korea, but inadvertently turned into a showcase for creative occidentalist appropriation when critics hailed it an ‘original Korean musical’ able to compete with Broadway imports (p. 83).

Lee's exploration of Korean adaptations of Shakespeare, a figure that, like the global fetish Broadway, is emblematic of Western cultural hegemony, offers another instructive lens on how theatre can approach Korea's relation to the world. In Chapter 5 Lee compares internationally acclaimed productions by Lee Yun-taek, Oh Tae-suk and Yang Jung-wung that employ traditional theatre, unfolding a wide array of ways to ‘compromise the two pillars of Western canon and Korean tradition onstage’ (p. 94), from idiosyncratic appropriation to cross-cultural commodification. The discussion in the book's sixth and final chapter of two productions of Prince Hodong by the Korean National Ballet, in 1988 and 2009, exposes the pitfalls of creating a unique ‘Korean ballet’ and shows how much aesthetic and political notions of Koreanness have changed in merely twenty years.

Ideally the author would have expanded more thoroughly on the promising hypothesis concerning the ‘masculinist ideology [of segyehwa] that urged South Korea to become a world-class superpower’ (p. 4). Lee persuasively discusses, for example, how the gendered nature of nationalism is reproduced in a global context when Queen Min, protagonist of The Last Empress, serves as bearer of tradition and ‘Mother of the Nation’ (p. 32). The argument might have profited if, in addition, other characters such as the rags-to-riches widows in Line 1, played by male actors in drag, or possessed Ophelia in Lee Yun-taek's Hamlet, had been addressed more closely with regard to the exploitation – or subversion – of the ‘visualization of national essence via Asian female characters’ (p. 41) for globalization-related causes. Despite this minor missed opportunity, with its combination of detailed production analysis and critical readings of cultural policies, this book is an important source for scholars both of world theatre and of globalization. Indeed, I highly recommend it not only to anyone undertaking research into Korean performing arts, but also to readers interested in theatre produced in a postcolonial setting.