Heartbreak Hotel

Check into this cathartic comedy out of Aotearoa New Zealand—a weird, fun place to confront your heartbreak. 

Karin McCracken is someone you want by your side on that walk down lonely street to the Heartbreak Hotel. The Wellington-based company EBKM’s newest work is a look at what heartbreak does to our bodies and minds. It’s a room with a view, that lets us in with pitch-perfect sketches, vulnerable slices of memoir and plenty of philosophical wit. 

Dressed in lavender tassels and backed by covers of breakup songs (Elvis, Celine, the real heavy hitters), Karin takes us on a tour through the aching limbo of a serious break up. She evokes famous novels and scientific research. She confronts her exes (all of whom are played by the virtuosic Simon Leary). She follows her friend to the Berlin club scene. She learns the synth. She even shrinks us down to a cellular level in her attempt to take a cold clinical look at the anguish. But it turns out there’s only so much you can intellectualise the feeling of making tacos on your own.

This Edinburgh Fringe hit is the latest in Eleanor Bishop and Karin McCracken's award-winning creative partnership. It’s one for the broken hearts. One for the open hearts. Something for anyone who wants a hilarious, honest take on the human need for—and fragility in—connection.