I’m an Unknown Actress, But Everyone Knows Me - Chapter 204

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 204

Rustle-.

Intern Academy’s Academy’s Academy

Genre: Black Comedy

23-year-old Jinjoo, who needs to prepare for employment and is about to graduate from university. But she keeps failing in intern applications time and time again. While her friends are building their specs, she’s endlessly anxious thinking she might be stuck in place forever.

But for some reason, whenever Jinjoo asks her friends something, they just smile and run away…

A healing play that comforts anxious and clumsy youth, but with a black comedy story. It was the perfect subject to present in Daehangno.

Myeong Jeha picked up the character introduction sheet placed beside him.

**Jin Jinjoo (23 years old, senior year)**

“How would I know this? There’s nowhere that tells you!”

A university student preparing for employment. She knocks on every door to become an intern but fails repeatedly. She gradually feels the distance growing between her and her friends. A character who simultaneously possesses innocence trying to adapt to society and sharp senses. She suffers from unknown anxiety every day.

**Kim Assistant (Assistant at Intern Academy)**

“In the information age, it’s the fault of those who fall behind.”

An assistant who really dislikes many things, but hates questions most of all. Only those who shut their mouths instead of saying useless things and do their share deserve to be treated as human.

She thinks all humans are parts of society, and this world only functions properly when people do their share without receiving help from others.

**Lee Coach (Intern Academy Instructor)**

“Do your share, your share!”

Neat attire, sharp way of speaking. A ‘life mentor’ of this era who teaches social life ‘skills’. She skillfully bestows teachings upon Jinjoo’s life. Her destiny is to make all humans in this world do their proper share.

“Just when the Korean Wave restrictions come, there’ll be chaos initially.”

The timing was insanely perfect. Myeong Jeha briefly closed his eyes, trying to gauge how much success Han Yeoreum could achieve as Jin Jinjoo in this play. It was difficult to predict.

“I don’t really like this kind of thing.”

Even as she said that, her gentle voice was strangely excited.

* * *

I mustered the courage to tell Professor Geum Bitkang that I wanted to look around the theater once. Then, unexpectedly, I was able to get the opportunity right away.

“You must really like theater?”

Professor Geum Bitkang said she had made a phone call so I could go in right away. It was a theater I couldn’t even enter alone before.

‘Unless it was absolutely a rental day, it was absolutely impossible…’

With one phone call, I could go in and look around alone. As soon as I saw the sign for Neulpureun Art Center, my heart started pounding.

Creak-.

When I opened the heavy door and entered, I saw a theater completely covered in darkness. Thanks to turning on one switch before entering, only one light on stage was shining.

“Nothing has changed here at all…”

I knew everything. It was a place more familiar than the home I lived in. Of course I had memorized things like the lighting buttons.

I slowly walked step by step toward the stage that seemed to emit light.

“It’s really small.”

Compared to Taiwan’s National Theater where I held a fan meeting recently, it was embarrassingly small in scale. Still, this theater used to look very big to me in the old days.

“It was so, so big…”

There was never a moment when I could stand in the center. The place where the unknown Han Yeoreum could stand was only for a very brief moment.

“Whew-.”

When I breathed in, the musty smell characteristic of underground theaters rushed over me. The familiar air wrapped around my lungs damply.

“The smell of dust mixed with humidity.”

I had smelled it so sickeningly often. Right before putting on a play, I would practice here almost all night.

Dawn when we drank coffee like water. We all had the same dream.

“Hey! Let’s really become completely famous later!”

Even if I worked warehouse part-time jobs until my body broke, even if red-faced drunks pointed fingers at me, even if I worked three part-time jobs a day, I hated myself for not being able to hate acting.

“Because I couldn’t leave…”

So there were moments when I really, really hated Hyehwa. I thought I had foolishly thrown away all my youth in this place. Because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t reach the stage.

“I didn’t want to come…”

I gritted my teeth with the thought that I had to succeed. Though I couldn’t tell anyone, I desperately wanted to succeed with this stage at stake.

I wanted to be acknowledged as someone who could stand in this place. By myself.

“I finally came…”

Actually, that was a lie. I wanted to come so badly.

“I really came…”

I gently stroked the stage with my fingertips. The cold, hard floor was caressed. I had the illusion that my heart was beating in my fingertips. It felt like every cell in my body was jumping around.

Now I can stand in this center.

Just that thought alone made my heart warm. On posters, flyers, program books – Han Yeoreum’s name would be engraved on everything.

An empty small theater. I stroked the stage with my palm for a very, very long time.

* * *

“What’s with her?”

Three people watching Han Yeoreum’s back through the slightly open door gap whispered with mockery.

“I don’t know. Why is she acting like that.”

“She must not like it.”

They were supporting actors from 【Intern Academy】 who happened to be drinking nearby. Someone who spotted Han Yeoreum entering the theater posted a photo in the group chat.

[Hahaha it’s midsummer, right?]

When they heard the news that great actress Geum Bitkang was staging her comeback work in Daehangno, everyone was ecstatic.

A master truly serious about acting is different in some way. She doesn’t just value what’s visible to the world, but stubbornly insists on good works. That was their sentiment.

The image of a senior that any theater actor would want to follow. With that image, the supporting actors of 【Intern Academy】 had tremendous pride as fellow theater actors.

[What? Are they already filming a variety show? lol]

[Fucking concept tryhard, I’m so jealous ㅠ]

That was why. Why Han Yeoreum became even more hated.

A rising actress who took the lead role by riding the parachute called Geum Bitkang and backing herself with JC ENM couldn’t look pretty to them.

“Hey, let’s go.”

Freelance actress Tak Jeongyun, who had been acting in Daehangno for 10 years already, hated Han Yeoreum the most among them.

‘When she’s not even serious about acting…’

Tak Jeongyun, who got the role of Assistant 1 in 【Intern Academy】, had worked really hard from when this script first circulated in the theater world. She analyzed it until it was tattered, then analyzed it again.

‘When she probably has scripts piled up even without bothering to enter this field.’

Thinking that someone’s desperate dream would be used as mere image making for someone else and then discarded made her stomach churn.

“Aren’t you really annoyed too, unnie?”

“Honestly, I am. This isn’t about doing theater for variety show filming.”

“Right! I really don’t like bringing cameras during practice. With just Teacher Geum Bitkang, there’d be enough promotion…”

The actors chattering on both sides of Tak Jeongyun also played supporting roles in this play. The actors cast as Jinju’s Friend 1 and 2 were full of complaints.

“Forget it. Anyway, after the play goes up, the reaction will tell us everything.”

No matter how well she acted in front of camera lenses, theater was different.

On stage where NGs are never tolerated, Han Yeoreum would receive harsh evaluations from seasoned audiences.

* * *

I quickly read through the script of 【Intern Academy’s Academy’s Academy】 once.

“The location changes frequently…”

From university to academy, academy to workplace, workplace to Jinjoo’s room, and then again academy, academy, academy repeatedly.

“Since it flows without one big incident, they chose to change locations frequently.”

Still, due to the characteristics of small theaters, props are kept to a minimum. As for stage devices, they just divide one circular platform and use it by rotating.

Jinjoo’s room has a foldable mattress and blanket, the academy has a whiteboard and a small platform in front. And the university has no stage devices at all.

“A high-difficulty play where audiences have no choice but to focus more on the acting…”

I think I understood why Professor Geum Bitkang called me for Jin Jinjoo. This play themed around the pain of people in their twenties needs to draw empathy from viewers.

To do that, Jin Jinjoo, a graduating university student who is ‘one of the most ordinary citizens,’ must be portrayed ‘most ordinarily.’

In a small theater where the spotlight is completely focused on the actor, it meant acting as an ordinary character without being excessive while memorizing an enormous amount of dialogue.

Jinjoo No, how can I get accepted as an intern? Is there another condition here that only I don’t know? Basic conversational ability in Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Russian, Spanish, forklift license holder, neat appearance with skin type that works for both cool and warm tones, short mid-face, physically healthy to throw 160km/h fastballs, left-footed soccer player, and even tarot master capabilities to read love, marriage, and career fortunes for interviewers – are only kids with all these abilities eligible for internships?

I turned the page back.

In black comedy, the heaviness must be one of two things. Either spread throughout the entire play, or occasionally shown as a single blow.

‘The character can’t be weighed down.’

A comedic character that offsets the quietly underlying heaviness.

This play is like a performance unfolding in a marketplace. On bare dirt with just one mat spread out, you have to make the audience laugh while wearing a mask.

Because in black comedy, the scariest moment is when the audience doesn’t laugh.

“If we’re not careful, they might not laugh at scenes we deliberately put in to make them laugh…”

I need to check the other characters too. Jin Jinjoo has an overwhelmingly large amount of dialogue. Even when the audience doesn’t laugh, Jin Jinjoo must make them laugh without fail.

“I can’t lose the rhythm.”

I recalled the sound of audience laughter I’d heard from backstage. Which segments of which plays got the biggest laughs, what kind of ad-libs made the revolving door audiences write positive reviews.

‘Since I’ve thought about it countless times every single day…’

It’s not a difficult task. I’ve been thinking about how I would have done it while picturing myself standing on that stage.

“Good.”

I was fortunate to know several good methods for making audiences laugh. For now, I focused on memorizing all of Jin Jinjoo’s dialogue.

‘Ad-libs that can make the audience laugh only come out when everything is perfectly prepared.’

This was the first time I’d looked forward to the first day of script reading this much.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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