Review: In ‘The Heart Sellers' at Northlight, newcomers compare notes on their adopted homeland
The new show at the Northlight Theatre in Skokie is titled 'The Heart Sellers,' a riff I believe on the Hart-Celler Act of 1965, the foundation of the still-current system of U.S. immigration that abolished a prior quota system in favor of potential immigrants' skills and family ties and was intended (in the contemporaneous words of President Lyndon Johnson) to encourage 'those who can contribute most to this country — to its growth, to its strength, to its spirit.'
Playwright Lloyd Suh's play, which had its premiere in 2023 up the road at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, doesn't discuss federal legislation overtly. Rather, it's a 90-minute comedy set during Thanksgiving 1973 and focused on two documented U.S. immigrants, one from Korea and one from the Philippines, who meet in a grocery store and visit (and imbibe) with each other and bond over their shared experience as newcomers to the United States. It's a work designed to humanize and build empathy for Asian American immigrants: the two young women, Luna (Aja Alcazar) and Jane (Seoyoung Park) are lonely, vulnerable and somewhat bewildered by unfamiliar American customs but also whip-smart, fascinated by their new land and more than ready to experience all it has to offer.
I imagine Northlight programmed the piece as a counterpoint to all the problems surrounding immigration: one never doubts for a moment that the two women, whose first days in America we are watching, will contribute substantially to their new home. And if you have found yourself steeped in all the current scorched-earth rhetoric, there is something very refreshing about being reminded of when immigration was seen more as an opportunity for all sides of the bargain.
Suh's play is modest in structural ambition and, to be honest, it pushes its buddy-comedy theme past its natural limits. At times, I found myself craving something more substantial happening in real-time, beyond the nuances of character and the worries about the still-frozen turkey. If ever there were a two-person play in need of a third character, this is that play. There's some oomph at the very end of director Helen Young's production, but, to be frank, it feels more like a sudden coda than an organic resolution of where the play has been going all along. Suh had a really great and well-timed idea for this play, but you grasp its point of view early on and there needs to be a few more surprises beyond.
More happily, the two performers you are watching on John Culbert's gentle set are charming indeed.
Alcazar is a live wire who gives the production its energy. Park, a Korean-born actor who first came to Chicago to study, is emerging as a significant comic talent in the city (I base that comment on seeing her of late in several shows; Park is an ensemble member at the experimental theater known as TUTA Theatre). She's an accomplished physical comedian in the sketch-comedy tradition of such, but she's also old-school in the variety of reactions she can impart, often in a charmingly goofy way, and that speaks to the huge amounts of attention she pays to what her costar is saying here. Park could well make a national impact.
As for a night out in Skokie, I wish the show focused more on getting harder laughs, adding specific details, building dramatic tension and thus deepening its affectionate portrait of valuable new Americans, understanding what they've given up, but also learning their way.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: 'The Heart Sellers' (2.5 stars)
When: Through Feb. 23
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
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