“The Heart Sellers”: Moving Comedy Reveals Immigrant Secrets—at Aurora
Lloyd Suh Explores Asian Women’s Joys and Pains in U.S.
by Emily S. Mendel
I’ve been looking forward to seeing “The Heart Sellers.” I loved playwright Lloyd Suh’s “The Far Country,” a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, produced locally by Berkeley Rep last year.
Moreover, the hardship of immigrants has been much on my mind lately since the U.S. President and the Republican Party are turning the already challenging lives of recent immigrants upside down, and with it, the essential promise of America.
I’m not alone in wanting to see “The Heart Sellers.” The play ranked ninth on the list of the ten most-produced plays in America in 2024. Now, Aurora Theatre is presenting a terrific co-production with TheatreWorks, Silicon Valley, and Capital Stage, Sacramento (which has already closed).
And director Jennifer Chang, who also directed Suh’s “The Far Country,” understands the subtlety of the subject matter and cultivates the full range of emotions from the two outstanding actors. Like an ignorant American, I did have occasional difficulty understanding the actors’ accents. But not enough to detract from my complete enjoyment of this simultaneously heartwarming and heart-wrenching production.
Set in an anonymous US city in 1973, “The Heart Sellers” explores the relationship of two new Asian immigrant women during their first American Thanksgiving. After meeting in the grocery store, vibrant Luna (Nicole Javier) from the Philippines and more sedate Jane (Wonjung Kim) from South Korea find friendship in their shared lives in America, and missing their lost families abroad.
Both are very much alone; their medical resident husbands are mostly absent, and they are left to learn English from TV (Julia Child and Sanford and Son.) Luna and Jane wander the wonders of the local K-Mart, while missing their families in their home countries.
During the 95-minute, one-act play, the two young women bond over discovering the joy and freedom of the U.S. But they are outside looking in—Luna only gets to visit Disneyland from the outside. They both suffer from their isolation and feel their “foreignness.”
The clever title, “The Heart Sellers,” is a play on the 1965 Hart-Celler Act that finally ended US immigration quotas that greatly favored European immigrants but excluded the rest of the world. Hart-Celler established a new preference system prioritizing family reunification, skilled workers, and refugees rather than country of origin.
But to Luna, the Hart-Celler Act means something very different. In a touching soliloquy, Javier explains that when entering the US, you must dig out your heart and leave it with Immigration. You must sell your heart and soul in exchange for the promise of America.
You are no longer of your home country, but not yet in your new one. You are disconnected from all those things that create context and confidence. Wonjung Kim’s final soliloquy brings tears to one’s eyes.
Their heartfelt speeches remind me of my grandmother, who emigrated to the U.S. as a teenager. Whenever I asked her about her home country, she cut off the discussion with: “We’re here now.” Her family and the life she left behind were too painful to remember.
While Lloyd Suh creatively portrays the new immigrants’ hopes and dreams, he doesn’t stint in recognizing their sadness and fear of the unknown. “The Heart Sellers” is an outstanding, entertaining play that I highly recommend.
“The Heart Sellers” by Lloyd Suh, directed by Jennifer Chang, scenic design by Arnel Sancianoco, costumes by Lisa Misako Claybaugh, properties by Christopher Fitzer, sound by Ed Lee, lighting by Isaiah Leeper, at Aurora Theatre, Berkeley, California. Info: auroratheatre.org – to March 9, 2025.
Cast: Nicole Javier and Wonjung Kim.
Banner photo: Wonjung Kim and Nicole Javier. Photos by Kevin Berne
Aurora Theatre will also offer a week of streaming performances for audiences to enjoy in their homes. Streaming performances will run concurrently with in-person performances March 4 – 9, 2025.
Lloyd Suh’s “The Far Country”:
©Emily S. Mendel 2025 All Rights Reserved