STAGE WEST: "The Heart Sellers" at North Coast Repertory Theatre

Jin Park (left) and Marielle Young in "The Heart Sellers."                                         Photo by Aaron Rumley

            The first show I’ve seen in 2025 is one I wish that Donald Trump – and everyone who voted for him – would see: a production of Lloyd Suh’s “The Heart Sellers.” Without being a preachy “message” affair, this 85-minute play reminds us that those who immigrate to this country are PEOPLE. People with dreams and vulnerabilities, grateful to be in America even as they miss what and those they left behind in their home countries. But now this – America! – is home, and it’s sometimes as scary as it is full of hope.
            North Coast Rep in Solana Beach, which enjoyed a fine 2024 (namely “Sense of Decency” and “A View from the Bridge”), is off to an auspicious start with its production of “The Heart Sellers,” directed by Kat Yen, the first La Jolla Playhouse Directing Fellow. It’s the story of two young wives (one Filipino, one Korean) whose husbands’ medical residencies have moved them to the United States. The year is 1973, eight years after LBJ signed into law the Hart-Cellar Act that repealed immigration quotas based on race or ethnicity. The day is Thanksgiving, and Luna (Marielle Young) from the Philippines has invited Jane (Jin Park) from Korea, whom she encountered while shopping, to her home for cooking, conversation and companionship.
            That’s the premise. It might seem a scant one for an entire hour and a half, but under Yen’s crisp direction the narrative moves right along, propelled by the gabbier, more emotional Luna who moves excitedly about the ‘70s-motif apartment designed by NC Rep’s Marty Burnett.  The at-first diffident, certainly more timid Jane gradually comes out of her shell, and more than a few swallows of wine gets the two wives talking, confessing, sharing and laughing.
            Being 1973, Richard Nixon is evoked with deserved derision, and as the women get to know one another and open up they express their disgust at power-hungry men in general, from Ferdinand Marcos to Tricky Dick.
            But “The Heart Sellers” is political only up to a point. It’s more personal than political. The strength of Suh’s script, affectingly brought to fruition onstage by Young and Park, is in each woman’s personal struggle with loneliness, with disorientation, with the double-edged sword that is assimilation. Each acknowledges the country she left behind is troubled, even dangerous, but each clings to something still there. (An early, heart-rending admission from Luna is that she regrets she won’t be in the Philippines when the family’s beloved 16-year-old dog dies.)
            Not to be overlooked is that “The Heart Sellers” is frequently quite funny, and not at the expense of either Jane’s broken English or because of hapless sight gags in the kitchen. In fact, there’s far more laughter than tears in the storytelling.
            When “The Heart Sellers” does turn weightier, it’s in Luna’s spoken metaphor that those who give up their country for another are “selling their hearts” in the process. This obviously is where the title of the play originates. To me, it’s a bit heavy-handed and that title aside, a bit pious too.
            In any case, Young and Park are a pleasure to watch, animated and enjoying great chemistry as the two strangers who are destined to become BFFs. Though Park has the more reactive role, at least for the first one-third of the play, she becomes the steadying force by its end.
            “The Heart Sellers” is not the first production I’ve seen in which the setting is two or more actors playing out a story while preparing a meal. The concept’s practically become a dramaturgical trope. Suh’s tale could probably work even without cooking a Thanksgiving turkey.
            As long as the wine was open.
            “The Heart Sellers’ runs through Feb. 2 at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach.