vanished father. Told in lyrical language, the play is
an examination of the trauma of assimilation and
the obliterating effect of Americanization on Asian
immigrants. Interestingly, the play avoids overt
references to race and ethnicity. The characters,
who are relatively young second-generation im-
migrants, see themselves as “Americans,” refusing
to bear the tag and possibly “burden” of their eth-
nicity. In this sense, the play presents a shift from
a previous, more clearly militant brand of Asian-
American theater. The play also posits a different
model for Asian-American representation onstage:
It rejects the naturalistic style common in the late
1970s and 1980s, in favor of a more fragmented,
metaphorical, and postmodern approach.
After the success of Cleveland Raining, Rno
continued to write plays and poetry. In 1998 he
married Helen Yum and had their first child, a
son, eight years later. In 2004 the Ma-Yi Theater
Company in New York City produced Rno’s sec-
ond major work, wAve. WAve builds upon Rno’s
use of poetic language in Cleveland Raining, this
time to more parodic and overtly political effect.
Based on Euripides’ Medea, wAve recasts Medea
as M, a Korean-American woman who leaves her
family in Korea and moves to the United States
with her husband, Jason. When Jason is cast in
a Hollywood film and becomes involved with a
Caucasian woman (who is a genetically engineered
recreation of Marilyn Monroe’s DNA), M enacts
revenge by killing her own son, as in the Greek
tragedy. Through M, who suffers from social anxi-
ety, Rno examines the psychological struggles of
Asian-American immigrant women, whose alien-
ation is often either neglected or pathologized.
Interestingly, Rno reverses in the play the real-
life dynamic of Asian women marrying outside
their race, by having a Korean man involved with
a Caucasian woman. As the play deconstructs the
musical Miss Saigon (whose film adaptation Jason
is starring in), Rno reconfigures commonly ac-
cepted equations of race and gender relations. Fi-
nally, as in his previous work, Rno incorporates
principles from math and physics into the play,
exploring how equations and laws can illuminate
complex behavior and the hidden connections
between things.
Rno’s other plays include Gravity Falls from
Trees (1997) and Yi Sung Counts to Thirteen (2000).
The latter, directed by Lee Breuer of Mabou Mines,
was produced in Seoul, Korea, at the Seoul Theater
Festival 2000. Rno’s poetry has been anthologized
in Premonitions (1995), Nuyorasian Anthology
(1999), and Echoes Upon Echoes (2003).
Samuel ParkRosca, Ninotchka (1946– )
Ninotchka Rosca has been hailed as the single most
eminent voice of the Filipino people. Born and
raised in the Philippines, Rosca immigrated to the
United States in the 1970s as a political exile after
having been a political prisoner under the Marcos
regime in the Philippines. Besides being a fiction
writer and journalist, Rosca is also a social critic
whose works are recognized worldwide. Speak-
ing out on issues that affect women in the Third
World, she has been an eloquent voice for justice
and equality and is a global expert on women’s and
children’s issues. As the founder and director of
GABRIELA, an organization working against the
violations of women’s rights, including the mail-
order bride industry, she tours around the world
extensively to share her insights and expertise on
women’s issues.
Rosca has written novels, short stories, and es-
says. Her first novel, State of War (1988), won the
National Book Award by the Manila Critics Circle
in 1988, and has been translated into Dutch and
published as a separate edition in Britain. Tw i c e
Blessed (1992), her second novel, won the American
Book Award for Excellence in Literature in 1993,
and is considered her most compelling work. In
Twice Blessed, she traces the madness and grimness
of Filipino politics and depicts the alienation of the
people by its very own political system. She has also
written two short-story collections, Bitter Country
(1970) and Monsoon Collection (1983), and a work
of nonfiction entitled Endgame: The Fall of Mar-
cos (1987). In Endgame, Rosca turns to her native
Philippines to write a dreamy, allegorical history of
the Philippines seen through the eyes of her three
main characters. In 2004 she coauthored a bookRosca, Ninotchka 253