The lighting is purple—mainly. Tinged with a bit of blue on the edges, it fractures through the straight-edged tables and chairs posed on the black stage. The light cloaks the hushed crowd in the University Theatre, slipping into the crevices between the velvety seats and pooling on the concrete floor. We hold our breath as the actress paces on the stage; sways slightly as if savoring the taste of her words; opens her mouth and lets the sharpness clatter out. Every word cuts: they’re desperate and gasping, straining to reach for some kind of meaning we can’t quite hear. She stands still. Silence feels like glass here.
Stefani Kuo’s (PC ’17) delicacy of a puffin heart quivered with vicious emotion from February 15 to 17, presented by the Yale Dramatic Association in collaboration with the Asian American Collective of Theatermakers. Directed by Alastair Rao (SY ’26) and Alicia Shen (PC ’26), and stage managed by Thomas Kannam (GH ’26), this play weaves together two storylines: Meryl (Millie Liao, SM ’27) and Ana Sofia (Angelica Peruzzi, SY ’27) attempt to create a family through in-vitro fertilization amidst Meryl’s mental illness; twenty years later, their daughter Robyn (Jessica Le, DC ’27) and her friend Hadley (Jane Park, PC ’26) struggle to balance their friendship amidst Hadley’s cancer. Mother and daughter move alongside each other in different timelines—both stories are rooted within the unchanging setting of one apartment, grappling with vulnerability and what it means to ask for love. There’s a particularly funny moment when the scene change from Robyn’s apartment to Paula’s (Chloe Nguyen, SY ’26) is marked by dragging in a single table with an MCAT practice book solemnly lodged in its shelf. The play is earnest, in more ways than this.
The orange lighting envelops Robyn and Hadley in a harmonious warmth; Meryl and Ana Sofia, helplessly stuck in the past, are left in the shadows as they lie together on the couch. The characters cling to each other in a warmth fused from the collective pain/joy/grief of being a woman and wanting more—to successfully mother a baby; to have a complete family; to not be left alone; to be good at what they were expected to do; to deserve love in spite of their efforts to prove otherwise.
When I went to see delicacy of a puffin heart on Friday, February 16, I was first drawn to the title. A heart of a puffin, delicate and feathered in a mysterious vulnerability—it had to mean something. I walked in, a companion close behind me, and expected to be changed. It was, admittedly, an ambitious goal. How often are you changed by art?
All the characters are searching for something—they’re chained to an obsessive dedication founded by the basis of their heritage, echoing the narratives of because I am Korean/Chinese/Asian I must succeed at this, and I need to do this for my family so I can be seen and understood. Hadley strives to succeed in school for acknowledgement from her traditional Korean father. She’s an interesting character—earnest and helplessly vulnerable to the struggles of people around her. Her shared apartment with Robyn is haunted by memories of mothers who are not her own; her friend Paula only blabs about her boyfriend; Robyn’s sickness worsens and colors everything between them. Hadley shouts and cries and claws through it all, armed with that Asian tenacity and a weariness of trying to live life. We never see Hadley’s family or Paula’s boyfriend, but the stakes are intensified in their absence: the characters carry on with the burden of a greater reason than themselves to live for.
But sometimes life is too hard. With every question beginning each scene, the characters probe into a world that becomes more flawed, more unrecognizable, more broken. But they try, earnestly as everything in this play is, to offer every part of themselves. Ana Sofia gives her body to carry her child with Meryl, and patiently tends to her partner in spite of the mess of her mental illness. There could be hope, we think. Things could change. But then Ana Sofia leaves, and we’re left with the uncomfortable truth once again: sometimes loving isn’t enough. There are limits to how much we can give, to how long we can stay.
As I left the theater, a headache blooming in my temples, I blinked wearily at the blinding streetlights. Looked up and watched my breath fog towards the shockingly bright moon, clear and white against the night sky. Sometimes loving isn’t enough—I let it mull in my mouth and ripen into the familiar feeling of wanting to cry. The residue of desperation ached in my throat: the familiar plea for someone to be gentle with you—to look at you and keep looking.
The warmth of the light clung to the wooden doors of the theater; lapped at the soles of my shoes on the stairs before slipping away. I gripped a hand, warm in mine, and prayed that when I chose love, I would be deserving of it back.
