Episode 170: Plays Are the "Concentrate of Conflict"
A play is the concentrate of conflict. If it's a story about what happens between people, doesn't that apply to pretty much everything? But "conflict" holds particular importance in plays, more so than in dramas, films, novels, or other media.
Why? Because plays face an obstacle those others don't: the constraint of space.
Visual media and written texts allow free scene changes. As long as the story's logic holds, characters can move anywhere. There's no restriction on setting the main backdrop.
Plays are different. They're not purely visual, nor just text on a page. They're meant to be performed on stage, so the backdrop and locations are limited from the start. You can't overhaul the entire set during those brief blackouts between scenes. Unless it's a pageant-style production, you're lucky to have one or two locations—and most plays unfold in a single space.
This spatial limit makes it hard to tell long, drawn-out stories like in movies, dramas, or novels. You need tight composition to build and release tension in one concentrated burst. That's why plays zero in on interpersonal conflict. It's the structure that smoothly connects exposition, rising action, climax, and resolution—all in one space, sparked by a single conflict.
The protagonist creates the play's first key element of "conflict" in Saw the Pheasant?.
"Grandpa, what are you doing to my little brother right now?!"
"……?"
It was the young man's own sister.
The moment she flung open the hospital room door, she spotted the old man huddled close to her brother. She dashed in, startled, her fury already plain in her frantic entrance.
"Get away from him—right now!"
"And who might this young lady be?"
"I'm his sister. Whatever—leave my brother alone!"
The young man's sister wedged herself between him and the old man, hauling her brother up and plopping him down on the opposite bed.
Confusion still clouded the young man's face. He looked just like a kid caught sneaking snacks before dinner, busted by oblivious parents.
"Hyeong-jun!"
"…Yeah."
"You forgot our promise?"
"…No."
"Then why'd you do that just now?"
"…Sorry, sis."
Her sharp, no-nonsense tone pressed on with scolding.
Oh, right—so the young man's name was Hyeong-jun.
"Excuse me, miss… just a moment…"
The old man, eyes wide and rolling, was about to speak when—
"Wanna take a quick walk out front with me, Hyeong-jun?"
"……."
Nod, nod.
The young man rose slowly and shuffled out with his sister.
The old man's gaze trailed them to the door, then stopped. It shifted to the pile of bottled drinks she'd brought, now spilling across the floor.
"Aigoo…."
One glass bottle had shattered in the bag, its contents slowly pooling on the tiles. She must've been so shocked she'd dropped everything and bolted in.
"Young folks these days—such a scatterbrain."
Tsking his tongue, the old man grabbed some tissues. He dabbed at the mess with the dampened wad.
What's their story?
He'd wanted to ask, but they'd left before he could. Her snappish reaction from a total stranger had left him nonplussed. Back in his day, he'd have flipped the table: What kind of ill-mannered wench is this…?
But time's cruelty and regrets he'd carry to his grave had mellowed him. For now, he'd watch and wait, quietly mopping the floor.
Alone, he nodded to himself: If it were the old me, this never would've happened. Yeah, exactly.
* * *
The young man's sister, Su-yeong. Hyeong-jun was her only blood relative.
Her brother had been frail since birth. Different from other kids.
If only it had been a good kind of different…
It wasn't.
Vague childhood memories always lingered in her heart. She regretted how she'd thought of him back then.
"Hyeong-jun, wanna play with sis?"
"…Sure."
He spent a lot of time alone at home. Not because society labeled him "disabled." Not friendless, not inconveniently different.
Just… the environment left no choice.
Su-yeong was six, Hyeong-jun three, when their parents died in a freak car accident. Orphaned young, they were raised by their aunt.
She was a good person. Or rather—
"Why don't you listen, you little shits!"
"…Sorry, sorry!"
"All you do is waste food… Get out!"
—only on the surface.
The inheritance wasn't huge, but decent. It went to their self-appointed guardian aunt, and the kids followed.
"We'll be happy with Aunt!"
"Yeah!"
At first, she wasn't like that. She doted on them like her own, a childless single woman for whom they were more than nieces and nephews—true children.
But then—
"…I'm living like this because of you two worthless brats, got it?!"
—she changed.
The house, once spacious enough for three, shrank day by day: two digits to one, then even smaller.
Home-cooked meals turned to cheap instant junk. Desserts vanished. Warm tables filled with empty soju bottles: one, two, three… She stopped counting one night. Too many. The kitchen once looked like a green meadow, drowned in empties.
Aunt grew irritable, exploding if she didn't vent. That's when—
Slap!
—Su-yeong got her first slap.
Nothing major. Glared like an "X" or whatever. First times are always hardest. Once broken, it gets easier.
She endured the abuse till adulthood.
Some say, Why take it like a fool? Why not leave? Su-yeong wanted to fire back.
"…Sis."
"Yeah, my Hyeong-jun."
"…Aunt bad."
"……."
Tell them, and most swear, I'd never take that. But would they, living it?
"No. Aunt's just stressed lately."
"…Stressed, but hits sis why?"
"It's not that. Why would she hit me? We were just… playing with Aunt."
"…Playing?"
"Ah… yeah! Sis was… playing fight with Aunt!"
"…Me too."
"No, Hyeong-jun can't."
"…Why?"
"……."
She had someone to protect, no matter what. The beatings had to end with her.
That's probably when it started—her negative view of him interacting with others.
"Hyeong-jun's a boy. Aunt and sis are girls. Boys and girls can't fight."
"…Okay."
Lame excuses to dissuade him. When he sulked, she'd say—
"Hyeong-jun."
"…Yeah."
"Wanna draw?"
She was the first to teach him art.
* * *
"……."
Woojin quietly let go of the hand.
Wriggle, wriggle.
The child's small fingers fidgeted on his palm, twice the size.
Finally, they slipped away. In that instant, the blank stare blinked.
Woojin snapped back. The vivid afterglow of those flashbacks wrapped around him.
"…Saw it?"
The child met his eyes.
Woojin nodded silently.
"…Sis hates it."
The child turned back to the wall.
Now it clicked. The subtle unease he'd felt, the tangled threads in his mind—they unraveled.
So that's why Woojin was angry.
Not at the child, his sister, or their abusive aunt.
I've still been thinking too simplistically.
Anger at himself.
And she hasn't researched her character as deeply as I have.
At Myeong Se-hui sunbaenim.
Had she inferred her character's backstory this thoroughly? Probably not. Her acting hadn't been this deep.
Hyeong-jun and Su-yeong's past wasn't detailed in the Saw the Pheasant? script. Plays live through dialogue; info emerges there. But no need to spell everything out—exposition kills pace, leaving boredom.
I inferred their bond, but should've dug deeper… Didn't expect such a heavy past.
Woojin had puzzled over this for days, even amid rehearsals.
- The young man was hurt by others.
- So his immature sister blocks his relationships.
Simple enough. But even after dozens of reads—
Why reject approaches so extremely? And by the sister, not him?
In the play, Su-yeong visits weekly. Barely middle-school grad, high-school dropout, she fled with him as an adult. No savings, she worked six days a week to care for him.
Practical limits: arm injury meant weekly visits only. This rural hospital had fewer patients—after scouting options.
Wouldn't it be nice if others chatted with him those other days?
Woojin had struggled with Su-yeong's actions.
But my analysis was lacking. Definitely.
Feeling her 20 years vividly, it made sense now.
And he had to admit:
I've been lacking.
Acting has no end.
Now he knew why tones clashed with Myeong Se-hui sunbaenim.
Not just hers—his was too weak.
Woojin followed the child's gaze to the empty wall.
And thought:
So how do I fill that void?
Separate from the real performance. He'd been handed homework.