In “The Heart Sellers,” Lloyd Suh’s new two-hander at Aurora Theatre Firm in Berkeley, giggly, excitable Luna, an immigrant from the Philippines, tells her new, much less acclimated good friend Jane that when she first got here to the USA, she imagined the Hart-Celler Act to confer with authorities officers to whom immigrants have been required to relinquish their hearts—their allegiances and connections to their beginning nation.
It’s a poignant picture.
In some ways, each Luna and Jane, who’s from Korea, have had their hearts torn in two.
And playwright Suh (“The Chinese Lady,” “The Far Country” and extra) has a fragile, understanding method of exploring the nuances of Asian immigration in his performs.
On this one, set in 1973, he’s additionally adept at exploring the hearts and minds of his two feminine characters.
The Hart-Celler Act was enacted in 1965 to counteract racial discrimination. It allowed Asian “highly skilled workers”—comparable to two ladies’s husbands, each medical doctors—to immigrate to the USA. Earlier than that, American immigration legal guidelines prioritized white Western Europeans.
The 2 younger medical doctors’ wives are desperately lonely and friendless. That’s why Luna, who bumped into shy Jane at Walmart on Thanksgiving, invited her residence. They know one another by sight, and since each husbands are working this vacation night time, Luna (performed by Nicole Javier, who tends to overact and is extra convincing in her few quiet moments) is determined for companionship.
And so is the cautious and hesitant Jane, lurking nervously within the doorway at first, engulfed in a coat and hood. As Jane, Wonjung Kim’s efficiency is so suave, so plausible, so continually shocking that it’s exhausting to maintain your eyes off her.
Because the night proceeds, with a frozen turkey within the oven that will by no means be carried out, the 2 develop nearer, argue a bit (however extra playfully than not), admit to loneliness, to marital stress, to their emotions of powerlessness as ladies. Inevitably, they drink two bottles of wine, a standard theatrical machine to loosen tongues, however these two actors make it work fairly believably.
L-R, Wonjung Kim and Nicole Javier play immigrants who get to know one another on Thanksgiving in Aurora Theatre Firm’s “The Heart Sellers.” (Courtesy Kevin Berne/Aurora Theatre through Bay Metropolis Information)
In a single particularly charming interlude, they dance, and to see the cautious Jane reduce free is a revelation.
In one other, Luna sings a brief music so superbly that though the lyrics are, presumably, in Tagalog, you by some means perceive it.
The Korean Conflict, the reign of Marcos within the Philippines, the strangeness of this new land (the meals, the customs), even the scale of their husbands’, er, non-public elements: All are up for dialogue, and Suh, and director Jennifer Chang, maintain even the weightiest points, and the pervasive disappointment, gentle.
At occasions, although, I wanted playwright and director weren’t attempting so exhausting to be humorous. And at a sure level I discovered myself questioning whether or not the just about nonexistent battle might maintain the hour and a half taking part in time.
However the plight of immigrants, and particularly of wives who’ve adopted their formidable husbands to a international land, is heart-wrenching, “The Heart Sellers” lingers within the thoughts extra for its poignancy than its humor.
“The Heart Sellers” continues by March 9 at Aurora Theatre Firm, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $16 (scholar) to $52 (common) at Auroratheatre.org.
