Chapter 2 Part 3: When Opportunity Knocks

Two days later, in front of Theater Mae.

After finishing their part-time shifts and coming to the theater together, Junghwan looked at Yejun’s face and asked,

“Are you working multiple part-time jobs too?”

“…..”

“Didn’t you say you just go straight home after your pierrot gig?
Why do you look more tired than me, who does substitute driving at night and even makes gimbap to sell in the morning?”

Try dying about four hundred times in two days, hyung.
I went in for what they called audition training and burned to death a hundred times, froze to death a hundred times, died hanging from a tree with all my fingers broken another hundred times, and then had my eyeballs and tongue ripped out and died another hundred times.
Honestly, I’m not in my right mind right now.

And that’s not even the worst of it.
I got dragged into the doll room four times.

That damned vocalization exercise—I did it sixty thousand times over the past three days.
And that’s according to the exact vocalization count.

Junghwan lit a cigarette in front of the theater and said,

“I’m fine, you can go in first.”

“There’s still time, though.”

“Yeah, sure.
You know the rules for today’s demonstration acting, right?”

The notice about the demonstration acting had come through the group chat.

Each person would choose the role they wanted and two scenes they wanted to perform.

Each performance could not exceed three minutes.

Today, the casting for Theater Mae’s new play, The Scarred Mountain Lodge, would be decided.

After waiting for Junghwan to finish his cigarette and heading underground together, they were instructed to stay in the waiting room.

Faces of troupe members still unfamiliar to him came into view.
They had looked quite cheerful last time, but now everyone was visibly tense.

Almost no one was waiting idly.
In corners, they murmured through memorized lines, rehearsing with small, restrained gestures.

About once every ten minutes, the door leading to the stage opened, and Writer Choi’s face appeared.

“Next up, Mr. Donghoon.”

If only he knew when he’d be called, it might have been easier, but small-theater casting auditions didn’t work that way.
You simply had to wait until your name was called.

Perhaps because he was a new member, after all the other troupe members had finished their auditions, only Junghwan and Yejun were left in the waiting room.

After more than an hour of waiting under constant tension, Junghwan—who looked utterly exhausted—was called in first.

Left alone in the empty waiting room, Yejun, who after four hundred rehearsals could recite all the lines even in his sleep, drifted into other thoughts.

That doll’s training.

At first, he hated it outright.
No—honestly, he still hated it now.

Who would enjoy mind-numbingly repetitive practice?
Even back in college, when learning the basics, vocalization practice had been the most boring part.

Back then, every morning as soon as they arrived at school, they had to line up in the auditorium and practice vocalization until all the seniors showed up.

They did it about a hundred times a day, but since he was forcing himself to do something he hated while watching others’ reactions, he only managed about twenty proper vocalizations a day.

If you assume twenty correct vocalization practices a day for all 365 days of the year, that comes to 7,300 times annually.
But he had done sixty thousand in just the last three days.
That was equivalent to more than eight years of daily vocal practice.

Yejun lightly touched his Adam’s apple.

My voice has definitely changed.

It was different from just a few days ago.
Of course, in everyday speech, it wasn’t very noticeable.

But in stage projection, the difference was unmistakable.

Just then, the door opened and Writer Choi’s face appeared.

“Mr. Yejun, I’m sorry.
Things worked out so that you’re last.”

“Oh, am I going now?”

“Yes, please come in.”

As he stepped onto the stage, he saw a dark space with faint spin lighting turned on.

In the middle rows of the audience seats opposite him sat the director and the writer.

After Writer Choi showed him where to stand and returned to sit beside the director, the director asked,

“Which scene will you be performing?”

He was nervous.

No matter how much audition experience one had, it was impossible not to be.

Some actors claimed they had never failed an audition even once.
As for him, he’d done nothing but fail, over and over.

Of course, doing poorly here wouldn’t mean he’d have to leave the troupe, but still, it was only natural to want a good role.

“I’ll be performing the role of Jung Seongryong in #A-94.”

He heard the sound of the director and writer flipping through their scripts.

As he quietly watched them, the writer gave him a hand signal to begin.

#A-94 takes place in Shin Cheolho’s room.

A scene where, while drinking, Jung Seongryong checks photos of Kim Seonghyeon’s corpse taken by Shin Cheolho the day before.

Yejun lay down flat on the stage.

The director and writer tilted their heads in confusion.
Audition performances were usually done standing.

Lying comfortably on his side, Yejun’s mouth began to move.
He mimed chewing dried squid.
With realistic smacking sounds, it genuinely felt like he was chewing something.

And then, suddenly, the air on stage changed.

With a blank expression, Yejun stared at a single point while chewing and said,

“So… is that the corpse photo you took yesterday?”

The director and writer’s gazes unconsciously followed the direction Yejun was looking.

It felt as though Shin Cheolho were crouched there, checking his camera in that empty space.

Yejun let out a small chuckle.
His face showed utter indifference toward the other man’s actions.

“Seems the reporter isn’t in his right mind either.”

Writer Choi’s eyes widened.

Th-the vocalization.

It had changed.

Ma Yejun during past theater auditions and the Ma Yejun standing here now.

From vocal projection—the foundation of an actor—to eye movement, everything was different from the Ma Yejun she had evaluated before.

There’s resonance in his voice.

This wasn’t just about simple vocal resonance.
Any actor with decent volume could manage that.

Besides, this theater only seated fifty people.
With even moderate volume, resonance would occur.

But Yejun’s voice now rang out with striking clarity.
Even with eyes closed, one could tell exactly what kind of acting he was doing purely from his voice.

Yejun’s fingers moved toward his lips, picked something up, dabbed it onto whatever lay on the floor, and put it back into his mouth.

He’s dipping squid in—m-mayonnaise?
In the middle of an audition?

Does he even have the presence of mind for that?

Normally, when told to perform an audition scene, actors focused entirely on their lines.
After all, this wasn’t a full play, just a fragmentary scene.

When given freedom of scene choice, actors usually picked emotional outbursts or tragic scenes.
Those made it easier to showcase acting ability.

But Yejun was different.

Chewing squid, wearing an expression as if it were nothing special, Yejun said,

“Well, it wasn’t exactly a bad thing.
Just youthful recklessness—I caused an incident, that’s all.”

He even smiled, as though it truly meant nothing.

After a brief silence, he looked down at his own hand.

Flipping his hand over, palm to back, Yejun suddenly grinned and licked it.

At that moment, Writer Choi truly saw the illusion of the Jung Seongryong she had created standing alive on the stage.

“It’s nothing much—just a kind of love, I suppose?”

***

“This is unbelievable.”

“…..”

Writer Choi’s stunned tone.

At least she could speak—unlike the director, who was completely speechless.

After watching Yejun’s solo performance on stage, they swallowed hard and stared at him.

Since resumes were required when joining the troupe, they were well aware of Yejun’s background.

Nearly three hundred auditions under his belt, minor roles but with speaking parts in broadcast dramas—so yes, they had expectations.
But they had never imagined it would be to this extent.

The director watched Yejun’s expression as he stood on stage after finishing.

He’s still terrified.
Like someone who just lived through the event for real.

After completing the role of Jung Seongryong in #A-94, Yejun had immediately followed with #C-14, portraying the brutal death of reporter Shin Cheolho.

What people commonly called Method acting.

Easy to say, but truly living, authentic acting was never easy.

Not a single facial muscle felt out of place.

No part of his body asserted, I am acting right now.

It felt as though a role that had existed only as text on paper had come alive on that empty stage.

The director mulled over Yejun’s performance and finally regained his composure.

“Mm.
Mr. Ma Yejun, thank you for the performance.
You may go.”

Normally, demonstration performances for role assignments in small troupes were conducted in front of everyone.
However, Theater Mae worried that the actors might become overly tense, so all performers waited in the waiting room, unable to see others’ auditions, and after finishing, they were sent home through a separate exit—to block any exchange of information.

As Yejun, drenched in cold sweat, bowed and disappeared offstage, Writer Choi quickly spoke.

“Director, did you see that performance just now?”

“…..”

The director swallowed hard.

“He wasn’t nervous at all, was he?”

“Nervous isn’t even the issue!”

There was a common mistake actors made during auditions.

Knowing that Yejun had extensive audition experience but had failed most of them, this had been her concern—throwing oneself entirely into acting in a desperate attempt to show something.

That, however, often hindered natural performance.

The crucial difference between seasoned audition veterans and rookies lay here:
whether they could relax and act naturally, or whether they reeked of Look, I’m acting.

Yejun was unequivocally the former.

“Did you hear his voice?”

“…..”

“It was completely different from the vocalization he showed at the troupe audition!
His voice shot straight forward.
The resonance filled the entire audience!”

“He couldn’t have improved that suddenly.
Was he just too nervous back then?”

The director checked something on Yejun’s profile as he spoke.

“When businessman Jung Seongryong talks to Shin Cheolho about what he’s done—he was clearly different from the other actors who performed similar scenes.”

Writer Choi nodded.

“Most of them spoke proudly, shamelessly.
After all, he’s the central villain of the play.
But Mr. Yejun was different.
He spoke as if recounting stepping on an ant on the street, with a face that said it was nothing at all.
That’s only possible if he fully understands the role.
And did you see him dipping the squid in mayonnaise in the middle?”

“Heh, that surprised me too.
Doing actions not specifically directed—that means he’s practiced endlessly and found the most natural points.”

The director rubbed his face dryly.

“And the scene where reporter Shin Cheolho dies with his fingers breaking—honestly.
He looked like someone actually dying.”

“I felt the same.
Watching him, it didn’t feel like an auditioning actor on stage, but a living character.”

“Looking at his profile, he seems to have some stage experience, but most of it was school productions.”

“Since he’s under a major agency, they probably didn’t send him to theater auditions.
There’s no money in it.
So he must have only piled up drama and film auditions.”

Film and drama acting differ from theater acting.

In film and television, you can show only what you want the audience to see through close-ups.

You only need to act what fits within the frame.

Theater is different.

You don’t know which part of you the audience is watching.
That’s why an actor must focus on their entire body.

“I tried not to get distracted by the sociopathic expression in the first scene and the terror in the second, so I watched his body from midway on—but there wasn’t a single awkward part.
He acted with his entire body.
Is that even possible with his level of experience?”

They had expected something from Yejun—but only that he might quickly reach the level of the current troupe members.

They never imagined he would so thoroughly overwhelm the others.

Interlacing her fingers, Writer Choi said,

“There are no NGs in theater.
Even if something goes wrong, you have to push through.
Rookies usually stumble over lines—or swallow them—but Mr. Ma Yejun didn’t.
Not a single line was wrong.
Even when fully memorized, actors usually rush or slow their delivery, but he spoke as smoothly as normal conversation.”

The director propped his chin on his hand.

“Why would Daehwa Entertainment let someone like that go?
From what I see, he could easily out-act a good number of currently active mid-career actors.
Do you think there’s another problem?”

Writer Choi’s expression stiffened.

The excitement she’d felt watching Yejun’s performance cooled.

Adjusting her glasses, she nodded.

“He doesn’t seem to have any personality issues, but you never know.
Humans can wear masks at any time.
I’ll use my connections to look into it.”

“Yes, please.
Whew… seeing something that incredible really knocks the wind out of you.
Almost makes you feel sorry for the existing members who worked so hard.”