“Is that really my son?”
Yoomyeong’s mother was utterly stunned.
Her son had been invisible since childhood.
Up until the early years of elementary school, he had always been the first to raise his hand when the teacher asked a question, only to tearfully complain when he wasn’t called on. He would also throw tantrums whenever his older cousins doted only on Jiyeon and refused to play with him.
But at some point, he stopped trying to stand out in front of others. As if he had given up on something he could never have.
As his mother, it had broken her heart and filled her with worry.
“Compensating the medical fees should have been enough! To concern yourself with lowly creatures like that old man as well... you truly are an overreaching teacher. Follow me if you wish. If not, don’t.”
A throaty voice echoed through the theater.
A smile filled with malice and deceit briefly appeared on his face.
Where had that gentle child learned to make such an expression?
Suddenly frightened, Yoomyeong’s mother looked around. Then she gasped.
Ah—
From one end of the audience to the other, every gaze was fixed on the stage.
A black hole.
As though making up for the twenty-three years he had spent ignored, her son was drawing in all attention like a vortex.
Hyde’s intense first appearance came to an end, and the next scene began.
Richard showed Utterson the check.
At the bottom of the promissory note Hyde had given as compensation for the medical fees was a signature: “Henry Jekyll.” Concerned, Utterson went to visit his friend Jekyll.
“Well, the source of that note? I’m curious myself. It seems someone paid with a promissory note.”
“I was worried a friend like you might somehow be involved with such a scoundrel.”
“Ha ha, thank you.”
Bang—
Barely maintaining his composure, Dr. Jekyll firmly shut the door after Utterson left and began lamenting in a soliloquy.
“Initially...”
The words came with difficulty.
“At first, the pleasure I sought in my transformed self was merely the indecent behavior I normally despised. I wanted to walk outside and feel the wind without buttoning my shirt all the way to the top or tightening my necktie to the end.”
A spotless life, an obsessive personality, a dignified doctor. Henry Jekyll.
“I miscalculated, believing my darkness extended only that far, even if others were unaware of it.”
Boom—Boom—
A drum-like sound quietly underlaid the atmosphere.
“But what lived within me was a monster I had never known. A monster who took pleasure in assaulting people and felt ecstasy in the bed of a filthy prostitute. I resolved never to summon him again, but...”
Dr. Jekyll glanced toward the desk.
On it sat a vial of purple liquid.
“But... why does my throat feel so tight?”
With a voice parched of all moisture, Jekyll slowly approached the desk step by step. Several times he tried to turn away, but in the end, his hand closed around the vial.
“Breath... I need to breathe!”
He tried to unfasten the top button of his suffocating dress shirt, but eventually his fingers froze. Dr. Jekyll was a man who could not undo even a single button unless he was in bed.
Watching his desperate struggle to breathe, the audience unconsciously held their breath as well.
In the # Nоvеlight # end, he raised the flask in his hand to his lips.
The lights snapped out, and the drumming intensified.
BoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoom—
Ahhh—
A scream sharp enough to raise goosebumps spread through the theater.
And when the lights returned, Hyde stood there with his tie loosened and his shirt completely unbuttoned, his hair disheveled.
He seemed to savor the air as he drew in a deep breath.
The immersion and tension were unbearable.
Those who had read the novel thought, “This Jekyll and Hyde is different from the one we knew.”
An almost pathological obsession, and a self-destructive impulse that intensified alongside it.
Yet that was precisely what made him feel human, as though the person truly existed before them, vividly alive.
Act 2 began.
It opened with ‘that incident.’
The relentless succession of scenes left no room for the tension to dissipate.
“Hehehehahaha—”
A laugh saturated with pleasure rang out.
“Danvers Carew, dead? Just like that?”
Unlike during rehearsal, the body beneath the bridge was grotesquely twisted. Naturally, it was only a mannequin, but its limbs bent at impossible angles, creating a chilling sight.
And Hyde stood there looking at the horrifying scene.
He smiled softly, as though admiring a beautiful work of art.
“Ah, is there no one else left to break? If not a person... perhaps a cat.”
After muttering those chilling words to himself, Hyde stretched gracefully.
Then suddenly, his body lengthened.
Squirm—
As though the sound itself could be heard, Hyde’s compressed body violently unfurled.
It created the illusion that he had grown taller, his frame slightly swollen.
The actor’s superb physical performance was enhanced by the lighting. The angle of the lights shifted, increasing the brightness.
The shadow cast behind him was far longer and darker than his actual height.
‘What is this...?!’
Baek Lee-shin, seated in the back as he stared at the stage, gripped the armrest with a shocked expression.
‘To physically manifest Hyde’s growing presence on stage as the play progresses into the latter half... how is this kind of acting even possible?!’
Should I have clung to him during the Changcheon performance and brought him to July...? Baek Lee-shin, biting his nails, shook his head.
‘No. It’s a good thing I didn’t. I need to build a good relationship with him for the future.’
Doom— Doom—
The play steadily approached its climax.
The London Metropolitan Police launched an investigation into Sir Danvers’ murder, and the cornered Jekyll improved his reputation further by living an even more virtuous and devoted life than before. Hyde’s whereabouts became a mystery.
But in the end, unable to forget the taste of ruin he had once experienced, Jekyll picked up the vial again.
Without realizing it would be his final chance.
He indulged in another spree of debauchery and returned safely as Jekyll, but by then Hyde’s shadow had grown so large that it completely overwhelmed him.
A shadow long enough to stretch across the entire stage.
The next day.
Jekyll was indulging in a languid afternoon nap when dizziness overtook him.
The stage spun.
Violent sound effects accompanied it as chaotic colors flashed on and off.
And then he found himself standing before a mirror.
“Ugh...”
Even without taking the medicine, Jekyll was transforming into Hyde.
His darker persona had overtaken the brighter one, and Hyde had now become the dominant personality.
Terror filled Jekyll’s face as he hastily drank the medicine before the transformation into Hyde could fully complete.
“Medicine... I need more medicine!”
He ordered enormous quantities of ingredients to produce as much of the medicine as possible, yet for some reason, the medicine no longer materialized even with the same formula.
Consumed by anxiety, impatience, and despair, Dr. Jekyll let out a scream.
Ahhhhhhhh—
The hysterical scream lingered in the audience’s ears for a long time.
Finally, Act 2, Scene 7.
Jun-ho stood on the staff-only second-floor balcony, looking down at the stage while praying to every god he could think of.
“Please, let this scene go smoothly.”
Today was the first performance.
Jun-ho had experienced the magical sensation of seeing the world he imagined brought to life.
Joining Oedipus had been the luckiest moment of his life.
As a novice playwright, he had met actors capable of bringing his scenes to life beyond even his imagination, surpassing what he had written.
“Please, just this scene...!”
If this scene could be performed exactly as it had been during rehearsal, the first performance would be flawless.
Too anxious to sit even once, he remained on his toes. Fortunately, he was seated in a balcony section where he would not disturb the other viewers.
“That guy is really incredible.”
Juran whispered. It was something she had already said several times.
Jun-ho pressed his index finger to his lips.
It began.
“Dr. Lanyon.”
The setting was Dr. Lanyon’s office.
After receiving Dr. Jekyll’s desperate letter, Dr. Lanyon had retrieved the specified medicine from Jekyll’s home and was waiting for him. Then that infamous, loathsome figure appeared.
“You... how are you here?!”
“I came on an errand for Dr. Jekyll.”
Though suspicious, Dr. Lanyon handed over the medicine at Jekyll’s request. Just as Hyde was about to leave with it, he suddenly turned back.
A sinister smile spread across his face.
“Disappear from my sight at once!”
“Dr. Lanyon, aren’t you curious about Dr. Jekyll’s discovery?”
Though repulsed by the murderer standing before him, Dr. Lanyon hesitated at Hyde’s words.
“What are you talking about?”
“If I drink this medicine here, you will witness something extraordinary. A truth equally close to heaven and destruction, grotesque yet beautiful.
You may either turn away from it and continue living as the foolish but safe doctor you have always been, or you may look directly at it and become the one who has come closest to the painful truth. Which will you choose?”
The devil extended both palms as his honey-smooth voice carried a soft laugh.
Ahh, humans truly are foolish creatures.
Dr. Lanyon’s choice was...
“...Show me the truth.”
At those words, Hyde swallowed the bottle of medicine in one gulp.
And then...
The transformation began before his eyes.
The twisted spine cracked as it straightened segment by segment.
The contorted arms returned to their proper places, filling out to normal proportions.
The distorted facial muscles twitched and shifted before gradually returning to where they belonged.
The transformation was so grotesque it looked almost like CGI.
The face that had once held only grimness slowly turned pale, until it was consumed entirely by despair.
“La... Lanyon.”
It was Dr. Jekyll.
The unfolding plot was suffocating, giving the audience no room to breathe.
Act 3 continued its tragic progression through Lanyon’s death and Jekyll’s suicide.
Utterson heard news of Dr. Lanyon’s passing and received his will.
Then one day, Jekyll’s servant came running to him.
Following the servant to Dr. Jekyll’s mansion, he discovered Hyde’s body after the suicide, along with a single letter.
As Utterson carefully opened the letter left behind for him, the final scene began.
Jekyll stood alone beneath a blue spotlight.
His monologue began.
“My greatest flaw was my hedonistic nature. Pleasure brings happiness to many people, but for me, burdened by the arrogant desire to appear perfectly solemn before the public because of my excessive pride, it was difficult to coexist with pleasure.”
His confession...
Led to the discovery that human nature could be divided in two, to the temptation and conflict that drove him to create and drink the medicine.
It continued with Jekyll’s regret over falling into an abyss he could no longer control.
And then,
The brief reprieve he gained from taking the final dose of the medicine.
To spend his final moments as Jekyll, he raised a trembling hand toward his own head.
Bang—
And then, blackout.
Wowwwww—
As the curtain fell, thunderous applause erupted.
As if responding to it, the curtain rose once more.
Whoosh— the sorrowful soul departed, and Yoomyeong bowed deeply.
This was his first official leading role.
When all the lights came up for the curtain call, brightly illuminating the theater, he could faintly make out the audience.
In the best seats, applauding more fervently than anyone else, were two people.
His parents.
“They came...”
How desperately had he longed to see this sight in his previous life?
Even when he had only minor roles, he would place two tickets into an envelope and carry them around with him.
There had been many times he walked all the way to the post office intending to mail them, only to turn back. ‘When I get a bigger role, then for sure...’ he would tell himself.
His mother was in tears.
His father was clapping so hard it looked as though his arms might fall off.
Beneath the dim light, their eyes met.
And Yoomyeong knew they had finally acknowledged him.
Hugs from his parents, congratulations from his juniors in the business school and his seniors from Oedipus.
And the last person to hand him flowers was...
“It’s my turn tomorrow. Watch me carefully.”
It was Ryu Shin, wearing a determined expression.
