In “The Heart Sellers,” Lloyd Suh’s new two-hander at Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley, giggly, excitable Luna, an immigrant from the Philippines, tells her new, less acclimated friend Jane that when she first came to the United States, she imagined the Hart-Celler Act to refer to government officials to whom immigrants were required to relinquish their hearts—their allegiances and connections to their birth country.
It’s a poignant image.
In many ways, both Luna and Jane, who is from Korea, have had their hearts torn in two.
And playwright Suh (“The Chinese Lady,” “The Far Country” and more) has a delicate, knowing way of exploring the nuances of Asian immigration in his plays.
In this one, set in 1973, he is also adept at exploring the hearts and minds of his two female characters.
The Hart-Celler Act was enacted in 1965 to counteract racial discrimination. It allowed Asian “highly skilled workers”—such as two women’s husbands, both doctors—to immigrate to the United States. Before that, American immigration laws prioritized white Western Europeans.
The two young doctors’ wives are desperately lonely and friendless. That’s why Luna, who ran into shy Jane at Walmart on Thanksgiving, invited her home. They know each other by sight, and since both husbands are working this holiday night, Luna (played by Nicole Javier, who tends to overact and is more convincing in her few quiet moments) is desperate for companionship.
And so is the cautious and hesitant Jane, lurking nervously in the doorway at first, engulfed in a coat and hood. As Jane, Wonjung Kim’s performance is so artful, so believable, so constantly surprising that it’s hard to keep your eyes off her.
As the evening proceeds, with a frozen turkey in the oven that may never be done, the two grow closer, argue a bit (but more playfully than not), admit to loneliness, to marital stress, to their feelings of powerlessness as women. Inevitably, they drink two bottles of wine, a common theatrical device to loosen tongues, but these two actors make it work quite believably.
In one especially charming interlude, they dance, and to see the cautious Jane cut loose is a revelation.
In another, Luna sings a short song so beautifully that although the lyrics are, presumably, in Tagalog, you somehow understand it.
The Korean War, the reign of Marcos in the Philippines, the strangeness of this new land (the food, the customs), even the size of their husbands’, er, private parts: All are up for discussion, and Suh, and director Jennifer Chang, keep even the weightiest issues, and the pervasive sadness, light.
At times, though, I wished playwright and director were not trying so hard to be funny. And at a certain point I found myself wondering whether the almost nonexistent conflict could sustain the hour and a half playing time.
But the plight of immigrants, and especially of wives who’ve followed their ambitious husbands to a foreign land, is heart-wrenching, “The Heart Sellers” lingers in the mind more for its poignancy than its humor.
“The Heart Sellers” continues through March 9 at Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $16 (student) to $52 (general) at Auroratheatre.org.
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