What becomes of the broken-hearted? This show breaks it to you gently

Sydney Morning Herald

23-05-2025

What's it like to have your heart broken? It's a bit like looking into the face of a predator. Things get physical very quickly. Your body is flooded with a fear hormone in a process commonly known as 'fight or flight'. Weeks or even months later, in those very rare cases where heartbreak changes the shape of someone's heart, some people will literally die of a broken heart.
New Zealand writer and performer Karin McCracken was so fascinated by this that she made a show called Heartbreak Hotel with creative partner Eleanor Bishop, co-director of their contemporary theatre company, EBKM. Part of this year's Rising festival, it is the most affirming, original and compassionate exploration of heartbreak you'll likely ever see.
McCracken plays the show's hero, who explains the science of heartbreak to us and sings classic break-up songs. The old myths start being toppled in the first five minutes as she repeats advice from her mother: 'Exercise. Try something new … but the idea that time is a great healer should not be used, because for many people time stops … and it's a terrible thing,' she tells the audience.
McCracken, standing behind a synth (something new) on a stage lit like a shabby club, then launches into a cover of the Elvis song that lends the show its title. Later, there'll be other covers, from It's All Coming Back to Me Now by Celine Dion and Dreams by the Cranberries.
The show immerses us — with utmost tenderness — in the story of a painful breakup. As this story unfolds, Simon Leary plays every other character: a bad Tinder date, a wise doctor, a supermarket employee, the best friend, and finally, the ex-boyfriend, whose invisible presence has haunted the show right up until the point when we finally meet him.
McCracken began writing the show in 2021 when it felt, to her, as if the whole world was heartbroken. COVID provided a timely moment to explore the corners of grief. She and Bishop 'wanted to make a show about heartbreak that was useful,' she says.
They were interested in a contradiction: how we have a huge pool of heartbreak stories to draw from, but often these books, movies and songs are built from the same 'four ideas' about how to heal. Let time soothe you. Meet someone new. Drink water and go running. Find a hobby. Her own experiences of heartbreak had led McCracken to think about whether the received wisdom was inadequate, so she returned to first principles.
'I'd been thinking [about] what happens to your body, because anyone who goes through a heartbreak will tell you that it's a huge period of change, and often, you get sick or you feel really unwell. A lot of people lose weight or look different.' She became fascinated by the physiology of a separation, from the minute you get dumped, to the weeks, months and years afterwards. What she found is consistently intriguing.
In the first moments — when you're still sitting with the person who was, seconds ago, your long-term boyfriend — the body is flooded with norepinephrine, the fear hormone. This kicks off a cascading response from white blood cells, RNA (ribonucleic acid), and inflammatory proteins.
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'Our bodies think we can literally outrun or fight off a break-up at this point,' says McCracken, because physiologically we can't tell the difference between being dumped and, say, being attacked by a bear. The most startling thing is that the RNA that protects us from viruses is also stood down to funnel resources towards fighting the bear. Usually 'stars of the show', they now clog the system.
McCracken points out the absurdity of this situation, which might last for months.
'So we're primed to punch through a wall, but more vulnerable to flu.' Weeks later the body is in its 'resignation' stage; 'if someone's going to die of heartbreak, it's in this phase,' says McCracken. There is even a rare syndrome whereby 'someone is under so much emotional distress their heart literally changes shape'.
The show is carefully researched and, on one level, is a masterclass in science communication. It's also wildly entertaining. The challenge, says McCracken, was to bridge the gap between hard science, social science, popular accounts of heartbreak and 'anecdata'.
The stage design adds clarity. Every time we return to the science, informative section titles flow along 21 LED panels behind McCracken, like neon headlines in Times Square. This light installation gives the show the lingering texture of a Las Vegas chapel at night. 'There is something relentless about neon to me, which feels appropriate for heartbreak,' she says.
The power of Heartbreak Hotel also lies in the fact that it's drawn from experience; McCracken's vulnerability holds space for ours. I winced when McCracken's 'I love you' is met with Leary's pristine 'you too'. We have likely all been McCracken (or Leary) in this exchange.
The show is serious about heartbreak, but it's also warm and silly.
'Some of the things we all do [in a break-up] are totally unhinged, so there should be a space where you can laugh about that,' says McCracken. 'Or, a space where you can manage to take the bits that are funny as funny, because there are plenty of bits that aren't.'
Humour also underpins the pastoral care McCracken and Leary provide for the audience. Their performance is so naturalistic that audiences often mistake them for the couple they play. But they're actually long-term friends and collaborators. 'I love Simon on stage because he can drop into a character really easily and he also knows how to be with an audience,' McCracken says.