Milwaukee Repertory Theater's world premiere of 'The Heart Sellers' is a stunning comedy
I would sign up today for a whole season of shows about Luna (Nicole Javier) and Jane (Narea Kang), the young immigrant wives who become friends in Lloyd Suh's warmhearted comedy "The Heart Sellers."
Milwaukee Repertory Theater opened its world premiere production of Suh's play, directed by Jennifer Chang, at the Stiemke Studio Friday night. Judging by the volume and intensity of laughter around me, I'm not the only person who was thrilled by the show.
"The Heart Sellers" title is a homophone for Hart-Celler, the informal name of The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, sponsored by Sen. Philip A. Hart and Rep. Emanuel Celler, which opened up immigration here to people beyond the narrow list of western European countries that had been favored.
Suh's play is set in 1973. Jane, from Korea, and Luna, from the Philippines, have benefited from that law — and suffered from it. Their husbands are first-year medical residents who work all the time, leaving their wives lonely and bored in their simple apartments.
When Luna sees Jane in the grocery store on Thanksgiving, she impulsively invites her over to make a turkey together, which neither knows how to do. The voluble, oversharing Luna and tightlipped Jane slowly get to know each other, though Jane's command of English is still a work in progress.
What they share, of course, is being Asian, an oddity in the mostly white world they inhabit. Korea and the Philippines are as different from each other as Norway and Italy, so they have much to learn about each other. But each knows the feeling of being torn between two worlds, which Javier's Luna makes clear in an anguished speech in which she worries she won't be able to make her children understand the life of her mother.
Javier does much of the play's verbal heavy lifting while pinballing around the stage. Kang is a brilliant comedian with her deadpan face, gestures and drop-the-mic lines. But when Kang's Jane speaks at length, she commands complete attention, as in her disquisition on why men make bad decisions. Her concluding soliloquy, imagining a day of adventures with her new friend, is breathtaking.
Suh's play touches so many topics: the Asian immigrant experience, sensory differences between the New World and the old country, family secrets, marriageability — even Richard Nixon jokes. Underneath all of that are two women who become friends by embracing the wholeness of each other.
As Jane, the aspiring artist, says to Luna: "I paint you. You whole thing of you, not just you face but you smile. And sadness. And all of everything you are dreaming."
If you go
Milwaukee Repertory Theater performs "The Heart Sellers" through March 19 at the Stiemke Studio, 108 E. Wells St. For tickets, visit milwaukeerep.com or call (414) 224-9490.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Repertory Theater's 'The Heart Sellers' is a stunning comedy
