Chapter 109

Chapter 109
Chapter 109
“Observation?” she asked, taking a sip of her barley tea .
“We have to make a one-man play using the characteristics of the person next to us . It’s a bit harder than I thought,” Maru mentioned, thinking of what happened yesterday .
He was a little surprised by the word that Miso used . What did she mean, “observation”? But as soon as he carried out the task she gave her, he understood what she was trying to do . As a matter of fact, it was exactly in line with what Ganghwan often liked to say: “there’s no better training than observation . ” Carefully observing his target alone was giving him a very different impression of that person than what he normally felt .
“Hm, observation . ”
She thought for a second with a slight frown before turning to stare at Maru intently . Maru returned her gaze, mostly because he found her eyes adorable . She avoided his gaze first with a little cough . A little word bubble appeared above her head, probably because their eyes met . Maru chose to ignore it . He didn’t want to learn about what she was thinking using such underhanded tactics .
“Don’t you ever get embarrassed about anything?”
“Embarrassed about what?”
“No, well… whatever . It always feels like I’m losing out if I start talking with you . ”
She stood up with a light snort . The two of them were currently in the Myungdong Art Theater . On days when they had their amateur classes, the theater would close a tad bit earlier, and the high schoolers and college students would practice together on stage . Maru remembered being shocked when he first started speaking on stage . Despite the auditorium being as big as it was, his voice could reverberate throughout the place easily . He could tell from just that one experience that indeed, the building was built specifically with acting in mind .
To say it was different from a small theater would be an understatement . Maru felt incredibly insignificant as soon as he looked out into the seats from the stage . To fill out a stage as big as this with one’s own presence… would require an incredible amount of work .
“Hey, hey . Stop talking and get over here . ”
Ganghwan waved the high schoolers around him back over . There were twelve of them total, all from high school acting clubs near Seoul . Among them, there were even people who already made their debuts in the industry . Indeed, the producers for this project were incredibly careful in selecting candidates .
“I know you guys are all very busy with the festival . You have two weeks left now, right?”
“Exactly two weeks,” one of the girls said nervously .
This girl was someone who went to Bosung high, a school that ended up getting second place in summer nationals, right after Myunghwa high . As a result, Maru often found the girl looking at her a lot . Whenever her eyes met with the girl’s, she often waved back with an awkward smile . This caused the girl to wave back with a little bit of anger, little bit of defeat, and a little bit of a forced smile all at once . The two would surely become good friends .
“Han Maru . ”
“Yes . ”
“Come out here and say your line,” Ganghwan said, pointing towards him .
The first thing Ganghwan did after the amateur classes started was to give a script to each of the students . He gave them a temporary role and made them practice . After a few days, he held a quick reading session before making them act right away . He took careful notes as he watched the team perform a half-baked run, then assigned roles the very next day . As he assigned roles, he told them, “if you want to change roles, prove your skill to me . ” Meaning, they could switch roles with someone else as long as they were good enough . And today was the day when they could prove themselves to Ganghwan .
The amateur acting class was performing a play called ‘class 3, grade 3’, a casual play describing school life . It was a fairly average play, where none of the characters had any significant age differences .
Maru played the class president . A boy who excelled academically, but secretly admired the delinquents . Maru took a deep breath before imagining the classroom surrounding him . The classroom was tinted with a yellow hue from the warm afternoon sun . The blackboard was washed clean, and there was a little Korean flag hanging on its top left corner . He could hear some of the students making plans to go somewhere in the hallway . At the same time, he could hear the teachers yelling at the kids to not pick up any weird hobbies outside .
‘Page five . ’
The class president feels his heart start to beat, as he watches his friends he previously mocked start to dance . Once everyone leaves after school ends, he would look around carefully and start dancing himself, humming the song from earlier in the day . The door of the class opens, and his eyes immediately meet one of his friend’s . What would the class president feel in that moment?
“ . . . . . . ”
He was supposed to say ‘no, this isn’t what you think it is’ in the script, but Maru had a different idea . He decided to be silent, and communicate through gestures instead . He closed his eyes tightly for a second before scratching his head awkwardly . He felt if he were in the same situation, he wouldn’t be able to say anything . He fidgeted around nervously before walking away with a ‘I’m leaving’ .
“Okay, Kim Sihoon, you’re up next . ”
Ganghwan nodded silently before calling on the next person . Maru walked back to where she was standing .
“Did I do well?”
“Mm, you were better than the script, at the least . But the audience wouldn’t be able to see you fidgeting from afar, so maybe you do need some more dialogue to compensate . ”
“Hm, is that so . ”
“It’s a pass, in my opinion . But I’m not the instructor, so don’t take my words to heart . ”
The boy after Maru also acted out a short scene . Again, Ganghwan simply said ‘okay’ before calling on the next person . There was no feedback from him whatsoever, making this entire test move along incredibly quickly . The kids around Maru were talking to each other about the scene they would act out on stage .
“You want to hang out this weekend?”
“I have practice . ”
“Your club’s pretty insane, huh . Weekend practice?”
“I know you guys practice just as much as us, so shut it . ”
“Rest is important, too . ”
“No, you . I’m going to practice more, and get that best acting award . My senior took it this summer, so I’m gonna go for the winter one . ”
“Just where is that confidence coming from?”
“Practice, obviously . ”
What a workaholic… Maru gave up on going on a date this week, as well . As he expected, her mind was set in stone whenever it came to acting . Even in his brief memories of the past he could see her practicing during their dates . He didn’t hate seeing her do that, though, so he didn’t mind .
The kids stepped up one by one to act . After the last kid finished, Ganghwan gave his notebook one last glance before gathering everyone up .
“Good job doing practice, first of all . You have a pretty decent grasp of your characters even while practicing for the winter nationals . And here I was getting ready to scold you for being lazy, too . I’m relieved that you’re all so hard working . ”
It looked like everyone passed, for now . Ganghwan continued talking as he flipped through his notebook .
“As you guys know, this amateur class is a test run . It’s not really about holding a successful play, but more about figuring out how to schedule everything . It’s not a competition or anything either . Sure, it’d be good practice for you guys to act at a stage as big as this, but that’s not good enough of a reason to try so hard for this, is it?”
A hint of playfulness crept up on Ganghwan’s face . He was starting to rev up, clearly . Whenever the man put on a face like that, he always liked to start something ridiculously annoying . Maru had a small flashback to when the man made him walk blindly on the streets with that same expression . Saying that it was for developing Maru’s ‘other senses’ or something .
“I heard that many of you are dreaming of becoming professional actors . Some of you even worked as a child actor, even . That’s why I wanted to show you how professional actors get the roles that they want . Ah, I’m not actually showing you how that would work . I’m going to make you do it . ”
“Meaning . . . ”
“I told you, right? If you want a role, prove your worth to me . From what I saw today, all of you are pretty average . None of you’re particularly talented or anything . So, we’ll hold a proper audition, starting today, all the way to next week . We’re going to hold an audition for several roles each day . If you want a particular role, you should apply for the audition and challenge yourself . ”
Ganghwan stroked his chin with an odd smile .
“But just a simple audition is too boring . We need additional motivation . Am I right?”
The kids reluctantly nodded . Maru had to wonder just what that human was up to this time on the inside .
“You might know if you’ve seen a play, but normally there are four important roles, four side characters, and four characters that are no better than props . Occasionally you will see people saying that all characters in a play are important, but they’re wrong . After all, you can’t say that Romeo’s friend in Romeo and Juliet is more important than Romeo, am I right?”
“Yeah . ”
“That’s the same with this place . The class president, the delinquents, and the teacher . Roles like these appear in every scene, and they always take the center stage . I’m planning on modifying the script to make these four characters have more importance in the play . Meaning… the stage time for other characters would be cut . ”
Ganghwan twirled with a little grin on his face . The students, who were used to Ganghwan’s odd movements at this point, waited silently . But knowing well that this conversation could go somewhere very odd if Ganghwan was left alone to talk by himself, Maru stepped in .
“So what’s the reward?”
“Reward! That’s right, rewards are important . You know that our play is going to be put on for free, right?”
“Yes . ”
“That’s it . ”
“What?”
Ganghwan made another odd look .
“A teacher that I respect greatly will be coming to see this play . Not just to watch the play, obviously . If you truly have dreams of becoming an actor, then… Don’t miss this chance . Appeal yourselves to this man . ”
Ganghwan muttered ‘if only I were 13 years younger’ to himself dejectedly .
“Who’s coming?”
“You can see for yourself on the day of . You guys might not know about him, though . He’s a bit of a legend . Haha . ”
* * *
“I’m leaving! See ya!”
“ . . . . . ”
She disappeared in a flash . Her eyes changed immediately after hearing what Ganghwan said . For someone who wanted to be an actor, this chance Ganghwan offered must’ve been incredibly tempting for her . Maru didn’t know who Ganghwan was talking about, but he could easily tell it was going to be someone extraordinary .
“Not just to watch, huh . . . ”
Was the man there to cast some of the actors? Or what? Maru thought for a bit, but gave up thinking in the end . Honestly, he wasn’t very attracted by this offer . He was busy enough . If he were to get any busier from here, he wouldn’t be able to spend any time with her . That would be troublesome . After all, he was only working hard right now for his family .
“Hah, I guess I have to work on Miso’s assignment, now . ”
The sun was setting, but he still had a mountain of work to do . Maru took out his phone and started scrolling through his contacts .
* * *
Daemyung was on the way back home after finishing his lesson with his coach . His coach worked as a principal of an acting school after working for years around Hyehwa station . The coach always taught him acting very kindly, always relating to personal experiences to help Daemyung understand the harder concepts .
‘Hah, I need to lose weight . . . ’
The one thing his coach gave him as homework was to control his weight . Daemyung wasn’t very ashamed of his body, but he could only agree with the coach when he was told that actors needed to freely control their weight . But just as he shook off his hunger and got on the bus, his phone rang . It was Maru .