Indian actor Anupam Tripathi returns to stage for 'The Third War' in Gwangju

Indian actor Anupam Tripathi in Seoul, April 30 / Courtesy of Bereket Alemayehu

Indian actor Anupam Tripathi, best known for his featured role in Season 1 of Netflix's "Squid Game," is returning to the stage for “The Third War,” an experimental opera and theatrical production.

The production is written and directed by Bonn Park, a German Korean playwright and director known for creating immersive and highly imaginative theatrical worlds. The music is composed by Ben Roessler, who has previously collaborated with the director on several acclaimed productions.

In an interview with The Korea Times, Tripathi emphasized themes of joy, coexistence and representation, as immigrants are an essential part of the story.

“In the play, I’m from the foreigners’ world, and I play a father character," he said. "Our world talks about happiness and joy. We try to present even the smallest things in a joyful way through music, costumes and operatic performance.”

"The Third War" is set in a fictional world where magic exists. It explores conflicts between three different nations through perspectives that examine how truth, fiction, fear and propaganda become distorted during times of war. Throughout history, the three nations have maintained relationships, sometimes being friends, sometimes becoming enemies and then becoming friends again. The world has enjoyed peace for more than 100 years, but a series of events, media reports and the spread of a narrative have gradually led to a hostile environment that fosters despair, anxiety and dissatisfaction.

The work combines fantasy, opera, music and theatrical storytelling to reflect on contemporary anxieties surrounding global conflicts and social divisions, which seeks to portray the shifting boundaries between truth, fact and falsehood.

Although the production features many characters, Tripathi emphasized that no single person dominates the stage. “Everybody is the main character," he said. "The real main character is the show itself. Every character has meaning and importance.”

As an immigrant artist himself, he believes stories about migration and diversity are essential in contemporary art.

He added that the production aims to transform fear, particularly fears surrounding war and division, into something emotionally meaningful and visually beautiful.

Anupam Tripathi / Courtesy of Anupam Tripathi

Tripathi, having lived in Korea for more than 15 years, has built a career spanning theater, film and television. He is known globally for his role as Ali Abdul in "Squid Game," which established him as an emerging international talent and brought unprecedented visibility to foreign actors in Korean media.

The actor reflected on how his life changed after the global success of "Squid Game." While the recognition brought opportunities, it also deepened his sense of responsibility toward the representation of foreigners in Korea’s entertainment industry.

“For the last five years, people all over the world have known me," he said. "I want to represent foreigners in a beautiful way. I take that responsibility seriously.”

Tripathi, who comes from a theater background, said he hopes foreign artists in Korea will receive fair treatment, proper compensation for their work and greater respect within the industry.

For German-born Korean writer and director Bonn Park, "The Third War" is an ambitious project designed as a three-year artistic collaboration that ran from 2024 to 2026. Born and raised in Berlin to Korean parents, he highlighted the artistic motivations behind the production, his experience working between cultures and what he hopes audiences will take away from the performance.

“For a long time, I had the idea of creating a war opera, even before war started feeling close to home again in Europe. Opera, to me, is a genre of majesty and catharsis. It deals with huge emotions — life, death, fear, tragedy. I kept asking myself: What subject could truly match the emotional scale of opera?” he told the Korea Times.

“Then, over the years, the world changed rapidly. The war in Ukraine began, a conflict erupted between Israel and Palestine and suddenly, the fear of war returned to Europe. For many people in Western Europe, war once felt unimaginable. Now the fear of something like World War III exists silently in people’s minds, even if nobody openly talks about it."

He added that he relied on fantasy elements to soften the blow of reality.

"If you imagine a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is a realistic World War III scenario, and 10 is something like 'The Lord of the Rings,' I wanted to stand somewhere in between. Pure realism can become unbearably cruel, while pure fantasy can feel disconnected from reality and become simple entertainment," he said.

The fantasy elements include depictions of the people of the different countries, with some appearing similar to monsters. The wizard world is inspired by today's United States, "once seen as magical and dreamlike through films, music and celebrity culture, but now appearing darker and more unstable."

Park says he hopes this production will help make opera seem more approachable.

“I’ve always felt that opera should belong to ordinary people, not only elites," he said. "Right now, opera can feel distant, old-fashioned, almost like a museum piece. But I believe it still has incredible power to touch people deeply if it’s presented in the right way.”

A poster for "The Third War"

Daniela Zorrozua Cantillo, a French Colombian stage and costume designer working mainly in Germany, explained that the stage design explores three completely different worlds and civilizations, each with its own visual identity. Inspired by 19th-century painted opera backdrops and fantasy aesthetics, her creative team wanted to recreate the magnificence of classical opera in a modern way. Her designs combine printed and hand-painted stage elements created in collaboration with a workshop in Seoul.

The 120-minute opera will be performed in Korean with subtitles available, on May 29 at 7:30 p.m. and May 30 at 2 p.m. at the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju.

Visit acc.go.kr for more information.

Bereket Alemayehu is an Ethiopian photo artist, social activist and writer based in Seoul. He’s also the co-founder of Hanokers, a refugee-led social initiative, and a freelance contributor for Pressenza Press Agency.