Read Online The Age of Dreaming by Nina Revoyr - Free Book Online

difference between myself, an untrained amateur, and a seasoned professional who knew everything about the art of acting. Indeed, she was perhaps the largest influence on my development as an actor—with the possible exception, a few years later, of Ashley Bennett Tyler.
    “There is no audience to see you,” she said one day in Japanese, as I gestured expansively to convey my anguish at the death of one of my fellow soldiers. “You don’t need to project like you would in the theater, as if you’re trying to be seen by the person in the last row. Pretend the camera is the one man you’re playing to.”
    On another occasion when I was perhaps too under-stated, Hanako approached me after Moran called “cut.” “You’re painting a picture with your body,” she said. “Think of pantomime. You must express physically what you can’t with your voice. And use your face, your eyes. You have such eyes. They alone speak volumes.”
    Moran nodded in agreement, although he couldn’t have understood, and I adjusted my actions accordingly. I was surprised by the extent to which he let Hanako direct things—not only my own performance, but also the placement of props, even the movements of the other actors. Yet all of her suggestions improved the films. And between her advice and Moran’s direction, I was slowly learning what to do. The transition from theater, which depends on dialogue, was more difficult than I had imagined—indeed, many stage actors, even those who didn’t disdain the new medium of moving pictures, did not make the change successfully. Hanako Minatoya was one of the few who was equally accomplished in both realms. I was learning under her tutelage every day.
    On certain days, when we weren’t in scenes, Hanako and I would leave the sets and walk into the hills. They were vibrant with color, with fiowers wherever one looked— blue brodiaea and lupin, Mariposa lilacs, the wispy orange California poppies. Even the cacti, which she loved, put forth dense and vibrant fiowers, unexpected bursts of yellow and pink against their sturdy, sharp, untouchable bodies. The beauty of that landscape, when the air was cool, the sun glinting off the ocean, and the breeze carrying the scent of the fiowers, was so dramatic I could hardly believe it real. And I was seeing it, feeling it, in the company of an artist whose work I had admired for years.
    One day on our walk we were discussing a well-known actor, and Hanako surprised me by her reaction to his name. “He is nothing but a face for the fan magazines,” she said dismissively. “He is not a genuine actor.”
    “What do you mean?” I asked, although I didn’t disagree.
    “It is impossible to distinguish one of his roles from another. He is always the same, and it is obvious why. In order to project a believable fiction, the actor himself must have substance. You must possess something internally to perform it externally. He has only a fraction of the talent of an artist such as you.”
    I was, of course, deeply fiattered by her compliment, and I did not know how to respond. Hanako continued talking of this actor and that, without noting my reaction. That night, however, and for many nights after, I recalled what she had said with much pleasure.
    Because Hanako had always been unfailingly proper, I was surprised by her judgment of her famous peer. But I soon realized that beneath the unassuming exterior lay strong convictions and a will of utter steel. And while I quickly got over my initial awe of her, I remained grateful and honored that she treated me as her equal. I was so engaged in our work and our daily conversations that I found myself saddened when our time together drew to its inevitable end.
    After we finished our second film, I did not see Hanako again for more than a month. We did not have occasion to speak at all, in fact, until three weeks after the party in Whitley Heights, when I made a trip to see Mr. Moran alone. When I arrived at his