This article demonstrates how two significant South Korean Shakespeare performances have balanced the authenticity of Shakespeare (as part of the Western canon) with the desire to retain and refurbish the heritage of indigenous Korean performing arts. In particular, I explore how the directors of these plays have staged the contradictions of the East/West binary in terms of South Korean nationalistic sentiments that are adjusting to the influence of cultural globalization. For example, I illustrate how in Yohangza Theatre’s A Midsummer Night``s Dream, the simple dichotomy of East vs. West cannot be viably staged and how a Korean version of Shakespeare does not always mean an indigenization of the Western canon. I suggest the need to shift the lens of East/West dichotomy in order to conceive Korean Shakespeare performances more in terms of the balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar (i.e. to avoid essentialist interpretations of the interactions between global works and local spectatorship).