Review: Horizon’s ‘Heart Sellers’ is a subtle, powerful study on the importance of friendship

It hasn’t taken long for Lloyd Suh’s drama The Heart Sellers to become one of the nation’s most produced plays — more than two dozen stagings have been scheduled across the country since a successful bow at Milwaukee Rep in 2023. It’s easy to see why Horizon Theatre was drawn to the project as well; Suh’s work is an exciting new theatrical voice, and the project has two rich roles at its core.

Running through November 9 as the opener for Horizon’s 41^st season, The Heart Sellers is a talky but compact character study of two immigrant women spending an evening getting to know each other. 

It’s Thanksgiving Day of 1973 in an unnamed mid-sized U.S. city. Jane (Michelle Pokopac), from Korea, and Luna (Jenine Florence Jacinto), from the Philippines, meet by chance at a grocery store, start talking and decide to return to Luna’s apartment to spend the holiday together. Both are married to medical residents who have to spend the day at work. The two women have something of a meal together, cooking some yams and unsuccessfully attempting to thaw out and bake a frozen turkey. Wine also comes out. 

At first, a nervous Luna talks almost nonstop as she welcomes a shy and tentative Jane into her home. Yet, as the night progresses, each begins to feel more comfortable, and, over time, it becomes clear that the two have a lot in common. Both Jane and Luna are in their early 20s, lonely and friendless and feeling lost in 1970s America. They discuss their families back home, some shared dreams, the difficulty of meeting others and the importance of independence as they learn the ropes of a new home.  

The Heart Sellers refers to the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, also known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which overhauled the immigration system in the United States and did away with national origins quotas. Suh himself is the son of immigrants and used his mother and the difficulty she faced in a new country as inspiration. 

Suh may be familiar to some Atlanta audiences already — his play The Chinese Lady was staged at the Alliance Theatre last year. The playwright has a real ear for dialogue and a naturalistic style here. 

This production is directed by Michelle Chan, a resident artist at Breaking & Entering Theatre Collective, as well as a teaching assistant to playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. Chan sets the time period carefully, working with costume designer Lauren Driskill on Jane and Luna’s clothing and utilizing news clips from the time, including one about Richard Nixon not releasing his tax returns and another remembering the 10-year-anniversary of JFK’s assassination. Luna’s small, lightly furnished home with photos on the wall just above the bed is believably brought to life by resident set designers Moriah and Isabel Curley-Clay. 

The Heart Sellers runs close to an hour-and-a-half with no intermission. It’s a play that’s deceptively deeper than it sounds and covers a lot of ground, at times slyly funny. One of the more observant moments occurs as Luna shares wine with her new friend and mentions something she has seemed to hear aplenty from men around her — a good wife is not supposed to drink wine. 

Yet more serious moments emerge, especially as Jane and Luna discuss their past and coming to terms with their new lives. Those sequences, especially, hit home and feel topical, as immigrants face an uncertain future today under our new administration. 

It must be said, though, that The Heart Sellers at times can feel a bit inert and too-leisurely put together. There’s only so much Chan as a director can do with a play that is rather top-heavy with long conversations and monologues. 

The acting makes it work, however. This is a two-hander with lots of heavy lifting required by its leads, and both are up to the task. Pokopac, who has appeared in Horizon productions such as The Game and The Wolves, is probably more familiar to Atlanta audiences than Jacinto, but both Jane and Luna feel real and detailed, open to sharing more of themselves to someone they are just getting to know. 

The Heart Sellers is a small-scale, character-driven work without a lot of flash. A play containing hope and knowledge of the power that friendship can bring to our lives, it certainly makes us look forward to what Suh writes next. 

Where & When

The Heart Sellers is at Horizon Theatre through Nov. 9. Tickets start at $40.
1083 Austin Ave.

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Jim Farmer is the recipient of the 2022 National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Award for Best Theatre Feature and a nominee for Online Journalist of the Year. A member of five national critics’ organizations, he covers theater and film for ArtsATL. A graduate of the University of Georgia, he has written about the arts for 30-plus years. Jim is the festival director of Out on Film, Atlanta’s LGBTQ film festival, and lives in Avondale Estates with his husband, Craig.