The title of playwright Lloyd Suh’s “The Heart Sellers” is very much an intentional play on words.
His story of two women newly immigrated to the United States who find friendship in their isolation and disorientation is set on Thanksgiving Day in 1973, just eight years after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Hart-Celler Act. That landmark legislation in essence decreed that national origin could no longer be a barrier to immigration.
Suh’s own family history informed “The Heart Sellers,” which made its world premiere two years ago at Milwaukee Rep. The premise also connected with Kat Yen, who is directing a production of the play at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach. Her parents, she said, were both immigrants to the U.S. who spoke no English when they arrived…