‘We’re the heart sellers’: Effervescent performances animate Northlight’s poignant revival
“The Heart Sellers” — 3 stars
In Northlight Theatre’s charming Chicago-area premiere of “The Heart Sellers” — Lloyd Suh’s touching, 2023 two-hander about Asian immigrants in America — silence speaks volumes.
It punctuates the conversations between newly acquainted young immigrants Luna (Aja Alcazar) and Jane (Seoyoung Park), who spend Thanksgiving 1973 together in Luna’s cluttered studio apartment in an unnamed American city while their intern husbands work holiday shifts at a local hospital.
When they recall loved ones left behind and the loneliness they feel living in a country without feeling they belong, the silence is wistful. When they share their fear that not all Americans welcome them, the silence is uneasy. And when they observe that the repression and corruption that plague their countries also plague America, their silence is rueful.
But between the quiet and the conversations, a tentative friendship — born out of a desire to belong and a need to connect — takes root.
Suh’s gentle comedy commences with a chance encounter at a Kmart, where loquacious Luna (an effervescent Alcazar) invites the reserved Jane (a subtle, disarming Park) back to her apartment (the spot-on 1970s-era set is by John Culbert) for an impromptu Thanksgiving accompanied by a copious amount of wine and plenty of laughs.
“It’s hard to make friends,” observes Luna, expressing the sense of loss and loneliness both women share.
As late afternoon turns to evening (evidenced by Maggie Fullilove-Nugent and Josiah Croegaert’s lighting) and a frozen turkey thaws in the oven, Luna and Jane drink wine and discuss husbands, Communist siblings, their passion for music and art, fondness for “Soul Train,” how much they miss their homeland and what it cost them to leave it.
Which brings us to the play’s title — a pun on the Hart-Celler Act — and its dual meaning.
Named after co-sponsors Sen. Phillip A. Hart and Rep. Emanuel Celler, Hart-Celler, also known as The Immigration Act of 1965, reformed (to an extent) discriminatory immigration laws that favored Europeans over other immigrants, including Asians.
“Heart Sellers” also refers to Luna, Jane and scores of immigrants seeking admission into the U.S. who give away a piece of themselves for the opportunity to pursue the American dream.
Alcazar’s Luna imagines immigration officers processing new arrivals, asking for their hearts and newcomers responding by digging into their chests, removing their hearts and handing them over.
“We’re the heart sellers,” she says. “It’s us, it’s our hearts and we sell ’em away.”
Directed with compassion and candor by Helen Young, Northlight’s revival features the ideally cast duo of Alcazar and Park as the endlessly likable Luna and Jane, strangers turned friends who find in each other the strength and support they need to thrive in their adopted homeland.
One thing more, in her director’s note, Young wrote: “All hardships are lighter when endured with a friend who makes us laugh.”
That’s certainly true for these characters. We should all be so fortunate.
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Location: Northlight Theatre, North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie, (847) 673-6300, northlight.org
Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 1 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday through Feb. 23
Tickets: $49-$91
Running time: About 90 minutes, no intermission
Rating: For teens and older