Ruth Agnew reviews Heartbreak Hotel, created by EBKM, directed by Eleanor Bishop, at the Court Theatre, Wednesday 16 October, 2026.
There are so many things to love about Heartbreak Hotel, the latest offering from Eleanor Bishop and Karen McCracken’s trailblazing creative partnership, EBKM. Love, loss and scientific factoids are explored in a disarmingly, honest and genuinely hilarious depiction of heartbreak.
Since establishing EBKM, co-creators Bishop and McCracken’s collaborations have toured nationally and internationally, featured in prestigious festivals and venues including Edinburgh Festival and Soho Theatre London, and been translated into mulitiple languages. In 2022 they became the first partnership to be awarded the Bruce Mason Playwrighting Award. After earning armfuls of awards and accolades for Yes, Yes, Yes, a play for young people about healthy relationships, they have taken the next logical step and brought the ugly end of romance to the stage: the break up.
McCracken plays a lovelorn woman whose long term boyfriend turns date night into a long term booking at heartbreak hotel when he tells her he is no longer in love with her. Simon Leary plays everyone else, from her ex turned best friend and frequent dinner companion to her doctor to her gay BFF. While the characters they embody might not be perfect matches, there is a chemistry and connection between Leary and McCracken that brings a sharply focussed, sizzling energy to their performances. The pair perform together with an ease and comfort borne of years of sharing stage space (and living space; in a beautiful example of life imitating art / art imitating life, the frequent castmates became full time flatmates a few years ago, buying a house together, along with Heartbreak Hotel producer Meg Rollandi). Watching the different pairings they portrayed, I never found myself wistfully wishing I had someone special to share taco night with, but I am actively mourning the super supportive gay mate who’d give me life advice in a rave in Berlin.
The chemistry between Leary and McCracken is one of the reasons Heartbreak Hotel has been so well-recieved by audiences, festival directors and critics. They are so connected as actors that they play off each other’s minute mannerisms, timing an eye roll or heavy exhale in response to a line or action from the other perfectly, for maximum effect. They are every bit as neatly in time and in tune with each other as McCracken ans Bishop seem to be as a writing duo.
Heartbreak Hotel utilises some of my favourite tropes of NZ theatre; a two hander play, where actors portray a range of characters in numerous settings, performed on a set with minimal props or set, in the tradition of beloved classics like Niu Sila by Dave Armstrong and Oscar Kightly, Skin Tight by Gary Henderson, and Bare by Toa Fraser. The reasons behind this format becoming such a regular feature of NZ plays has its roots (of course) in the tight (or nonexistent) budgets that are an even more common feature of NZ theatre. By having two actors play all the parts, wages and production costs don’t have to be stretched across more people, and the entire cast, crew and set can be packed into one van for touring. Using lighting as set saves space and makes pack in and out easier. Our fondness for the bare naked stage filled by two actors doing skilled quick switches between accents and physicality goes beyond our expectation that world class theatre be created within inconceivable economic constraints. There is an intimacy forged in this world without big budget theatrical trickery to hide behind, an authenticity to the storytelling in the grittiness of a bare stage, a cultural pride in the ingenuity of creation, and a truthfulness that results in deeply relatable, compelling performances.
There’s always that moment of weakness after a significant break up – the late night, alone and lonely moment, somewhere after the first bottle of wine but before the second punnet of ice cream where you start thinking, okay, so he broke my nose, stole $12,000 from me and threatened to kill my dog, but he did have a pretty singing voice and would do up the zips on my dresses… let’s get back together! EBKM are here to remind you that going backwards isn’t moving on. There are no twee assurances that eventually your shattered heart will heal, or that one day you’ll feel better, or that your soulmate is waiting out there, just the promise that there will be change.
You know what has a higher chance of helping your heart heal than another night of revisiting the broken wreckages of your former relationships? A night out at the theatre, watching romantic missteps transformed into a poignant, hilarious 90 minute comedic synth-pop science trivia two-hander anti-romance/romance TED talk musical. Yes, Heartbreak Hotel is a show about breaking up, but it’s also much, much more.
I approached this show with some apprehension, mildly concerned that the subject matter might dislodge a layer of the accumulated trauma from my recent conscious uncouplings / marriage breakdown / history of awful break ups of worse relationships and trigger a seismic shift severe enough to displace the walls of denial holding my emotional stability in place. My anxiety was misplaced; laughing at the deeply relatable scenarios McCracken and Leary played out was more cathartic than painful, with more laughter than tears forthcoming. With Court Theatre prices well below standard hourly rates to visit a psychologist, I might have to return for a second show.
And for those of you who hit the love lottery and have never suffered through a messy separation, don’t decide Heartbreak Hotel isn’t for you. I bumped into some of the happiest couples I know, the kind of people whose functional, supportive, loving relationships remind you the world isn’t a complete black hole of despair, and they loved the show. My theatre companion for the evening was the least divorced of my sisters, who hasn’t been through a break up for over three decades, after marrying a man she met in high school, and she laughed and cried just as much as I did. So whether your next date night involves taking your soulmate to find out what heartbreak is really like, or you buy a ticket for you and your BFF to have an evening where you will be forced to have 90 minutes where you can’t stare at your phone wondering if you should drunk dial your ex, or if you are just an avid appreciator of Kiwi two-handers that weave extraordinary stories out of our ordinary experiences, get to the Court Theatre and make a booking for Heartbreak Hotel immediately.
Heartbreak Hotel has a limited run until Saturday 24 October. Banner photo by Andi Crown.
