@article{ART003330847},
author={Yoon Mi Sohn},
title={Making Racial Myths Visible: Metatheatricality and Fictionalized Reality in Sung Rno’s wAve [sic]},
journal={Journal of Modern English Drama},
issn={1226-3397},
year={2026},
volume={39},
number={1},
pages={219-258}
TY - JOUR
AU - Yoon Mi Sohn
TI - Making Racial Myths Visible: Metatheatricality and Fictionalized Reality in Sung Rno’s wAve [sic]
JO - Journal of Modern English Drama
PY - 2026
VL - 39
IS - 1
PB - 한국현대영미드라마학회
SP - 219
EP - 258
SN - 1226-3397
AB - U.S. theatre and media have long circulated racially constructed images of Asian Americans that, through repetition and normalization, cease to be recognized as fiction and instead organize social perception as unmarked reality.
This article argues that Sung Rno’s wAve (1999) deploys metatheatricality as a sustained political strategy for disrupting this process, targeting not the content of racial misrepresentation but the perceptual infrastructure through which fictional constructs acquire the authority of social fact. This study demonstrates that wAve systematically strips away the conditions under which racial myths remain imperceptible as myths, through close analysis of four metatheatrical sites―the Medea parallel, the film in the play, the talk show in the play, and the liminal figure of Wavemaker. Implicating spectators in the perceptual habits that sustain racialized representation, this play thus redefines metatheatre’s political vocation: not the replacement of false images with authentic ones, but the restoration of fictionality to visibility at the moment when it has disappeared from perception. This framework opens new avenues for perceptual and representational resistance across Asian American and minority theatrical productions.
KW - wAve;Sung Rno;Asian American representation;fictionality;metatheatricality;spectatorship;commodification of resistance
DO -
UR -
ER -
Yoon Mi Sohn. (2026). Making Racial Myths Visible: Metatheatricality and Fictionalized Reality in Sung Rno’s wAve [sic]. Journal of Modern English Drama, 39(1), 219-258.
Yoon Mi Sohn. 2026, "Making Racial Myths Visible: Metatheatricality and Fictionalized Reality in Sung Rno’s wAve [sic]", Journal of Modern English Drama, vol.39, no.1 pp.219-258.
Yoon Mi Sohn "Making Racial Myths Visible: Metatheatricality and Fictionalized Reality in Sung Rno’s wAve [sic]" Journal of Modern English Drama 39.1 pp.219-258 (2026) : 219.
Yoon Mi Sohn. Making Racial Myths Visible: Metatheatricality and Fictionalized Reality in Sung Rno’s wAve [sic]. 2026; 39(1), 219-258.
Yoon Mi Sohn. "Making Racial Myths Visible: Metatheatricality and Fictionalized Reality in Sung Rno’s wAve [sic]" Journal of Modern English Drama 39, no.1 (2026) : 219-258.
Yoon Mi Sohn. Making Racial Myths Visible: Metatheatricality and Fictionalized Reality in Sung Rno’s wAve [sic]. Journal of Modern English Drama, 39(1), 219-258.
Yoon Mi Sohn. Making Racial Myths Visible: Metatheatricality and Fictionalized Reality in Sung Rno’s wAve [sic]. Journal of Modern English Drama. 2026; 39(1) 219-258.
Yoon Mi Sohn. Making Racial Myths Visible: Metatheatricality and Fictionalized Reality in Sung Rno’s wAve [sic]. 2026; 39(1), 219-258.
Yoon Mi Sohn. "Making Racial Myths Visible: Metatheatricality and Fictionalized Reality in Sung Rno’s wAve [sic]" Journal of Modern English Drama 39, no.1 (2026) : 219-258.
