Since my baby left me
I found
a new place to dwell
It’s
down at the end of Lonely Street…
A woman (Karin
McCracken), standing behind a synth keyboard, welcomes us all into the theatre
with a rendition of Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel after warning us
she’s just started learning the instrument and she’s not that great at singing.
But in the wake of a breakup, she’s decided to turn her mind to other things –
and mastering the synth might stop her from obsessing about her
ex-boyfriend.
Created by
EBKM, an award-winning theatre company from New Zealand, this show has
travelled the world since it premiered at Hawkes Bay Arts Festival in 2023. Its
current season at Arts Centre Melbourne is a return after it was first
presented here as part of RISING in 2024. Time Out Melbourne called it the Best
Play of the Year, though is it a play? It doesn’t matter, it’s a beautifully crafted
piece of performance art.
McCracken
knows that we’ve all experienced heartbreak. She even asks the audience if
anyone is heartbroken right then and there. She says she can tell and
spends a few minutes scanning the crowd, peering into our souls. At a time when
there’s a lot to despair about in the world, the show doesn’t get into the
malaise of all that – it’s focused on that very particular feeling of when you
break up with someone.
We follow
the story of a woman while she dates during heartbreak, trying to figure out
a way to feel better again and forget about the end of her long-term relationship. She’s joined by
performer Simon Leary, who gets to play all the men in her life: her ex, her
new date, her gay best friend, a supermarket shelf stacker, her accountant and
Elvis himself.
These
slices of life – an awkward date, a flashback to happier times, an almost
breakdown in a supermarket, an escape to Berlin, amongst others – are separated
by direct address about the science of what our bodies are going through when
our lives are emotionally shattered. And more songs to tug at the heartstrings.
At first, I
wondered if these divergences into facts about fight or flight and neuroplasticity
might get in the way, but McCracken knows that we’re all as likely to google our
symptoms than actually seek medical advice or therapy. At least in the short
term.
There’s an engaging
alchemy in this simple combination of human emotion and mini-lectures on what
we all go through. The touchstones and the stages of grief and the rush of
cortisol and what the hell to do about it was as comforting as connecting with
the woman and seeing things in her life that I’ve experienced in my own.
Filament Eleven
delivers simple but affecting design: a large rectangle of pink shag carpet in the
centre of LED strips, which occasionally light up with text and tantalising
animation. The lighting design is fluid, slowly transforming the space from pub
to club to doctor’s office to the liminal space where McCracken holds our hand
on the heartbreak tour.
McCracken
and Leary’s interactions feel so alive at every moment, culminating in a
flashback to the breakup that started it all. That moment is raw and honest and
it reduced me to tears. But as affecting as that piercing moment of drama is, throughout the show there’s lightness and there’s humour and there’s coping mechanisms. And as we
reach the end of lonely street, the show drives us closer and closer to real
awe.
I’m so glad
Heartbreak Hotel has returned to Melbourne. I’d heard such great things
about it last year and the raves were right. This is a generous and thoughtful
explanation of real, life-changing heartbreak. Rich and renewing.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
Heartbreak
Hotel is playing at
Arts Centre Melbourne this week only, then it’s off to Ballarat, Merrigong and
HOTA in Surfers Paradise.
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