Finding Home: The Heart Sellers at the Cape Rep

Would you give up your heart to find a new home? That’s the question at the center of The Heart Sellers, now being produced in its Cape Cod première at the Cape Rep Theatre.

Luna (Joy Regullano) and Jane (Zoë Kim) have just met at the supermarket. They’re feeling lonely for a plethora of reasons: it’s Thanksgiving Day, their husbands are both absent, medical residents working long night-shifts, and—perhaps most importantly—they’re both recent immigrants to the United States and unspeakably homesick, Luna for the Philippines and Jane for Korea. They return to Luna’s apartment to try and navigate the holiday together.

The play’s title is drawn from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Celler Act, which eliminated restrictive quotas and granted new paths to U.S. citizenship for people from Asia, Africa, and other non-European nations: not just, as Luna notes, from “those white-people places.”

But, as the audience is already grasping, there’s always a price to pay. “Each by each,” says Luna, “they pull out your heart.”

The apartment reflects the play’s time—eight years after the act’s passage—and Ellen Rousseau’s scenic design helps us step directly into 1973 and into the aspirational world of immigrants, as we’re treated to a whirlwind tour of American life as perceived by newcomers. They flick on the TV and Nixon’s voice briefly fills the room; Luna snaps it off impatiently, saying, “how so stupid he is!”

Jane—who chose her English-language name because she’s heard of Jane Fonda—hasn’t been in America as long as Luna, and has absorbed most of the culture through watching television. Luna is more street-smart, clever and fast-talking, brushing off heartaches with a wisecrack. She and her husband got engaged at Disneyland, which was wonderful, though “of course we didn’t go inside.” And both of them see K-Mart as the ultimate American venue.

The humor—and there is a lot of it—is mixed with poignant moments. Jane laments that even “the dust is different here from the dust in Korea,” while Luna says life is “like one more soccer game I watch somebody play.” The women share their aspirations—Jane is a budding artist who wants to see “real” painters’ works, while Luna dreams of singing and shares a beautiful song, during which she briefly breaks down. They are both quick to rally before their pain descends into pathos: “I don’t want to be this kind of sad right now.”

As the fast-talking, wisecracking Luna, Regullano is a powerhouse of energy, a whirlwind whose words sometimes are at odds with her adolescent-style motormouth. It would be easy for her to dominate the stage, but Kim’s Jane holds her own, quieter, more reserved, but still a massive presence whose character becomes more confident as the play progresses. Their performances are elevated by Nina Zoie Lam’s delicate direction, skillfully moving the audience from laughter to glimpses of a sober reality that is more timely today than ever.

The Heart Sellers offers the kind of humor that’s enjoyed in the moment but causes later profound reflection—the best kind, to my mind. The production timing is tight and the silences—there are several—are woven in expertly and subtly. This is a story that will stay with you long after the final curtain.

“I’ve already changed,” Luna laments toward the end of the play. “I sold my heart and I can’t ever get it back.”

She may just have given it to us.

review by Jeannette de Beauvoir

images by Bob Tucker/Focalpoint Studio

 The Heart Sellers is at Cape Rep Theatre through October 20, 2024