Divorce: even the word hurts. It conjures up images of separation, severance, a division. In the middle of these cracks between people, children sometimes dwell, a reminder, a remnant. Children like Eloise.

Eloise is 7 and lives with her mum, while her dad lives in Wellington. She doesn’t see her dad very much. Eloise knows that her mum is mad at her dad, but, when he calls, she jumps at the chance to see him.

Sara Georgie plays both Eloise and her mother Karen in recounting the child’s brief adventures in Wellington. Her delivery is superb; both characters emerge in crystal clarity, vibrant and well-defined. The clever multi-levelled set is a perfect landscape for Georgie’s story-telling, enabling changes of mood and state throughout the work. This is further underlined through dramatic use of lighting and sound.

Another outstanding element of the design is the use of audio-visual images and animation provided by Communication Design students from the Otago Polytechnic School of Design.

Following the show, we are lucky enough to have a few minutes with director Jordan Dickson, writer Emily Duncan, actor Sara Georgie, Simon Anderson (set design) and Matt Morgan (sound). The collaborative nature of the work undertaken amongst this talented group is impossible to overlook. In stark contrast with the traditional role of director (being one who directs), it is clear that Dickson, Duncan and Georgie’s relationship is a true partnership based on mutual trust and respect. With the added proficiency of an expert technical team, the production is slick and professional while still maintaining a sense of intimacy.

The topic of divorce and its impacts on the children of these so-called ‘broken homes’ is a serious issue for many families throughout Aotearoa. To be expressing this conversation through the eyes of a child is a potent and commendable approach.  

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Eloise in the Middle feels like a play we need, a play we have been waiting for, and not just because the Fortune was meant to present it as part of their mainstage programme this year. It is tender and funny and true.  It is about a child, but not at all childish. It will speak intimately to many, children and adults, who have suffered the break-up of families. 

It takes me back to when I was six, and lost my father.  My world changed completely, yet no one spoke about it. We even changed countries. I changed too, became a nervous little girl constantly fearful of transgressing strange incomprehensible rules.

For Eloise too, the rules have changed. She is only seven and, for more than half her life, she has lived with her mother, Karen. Now she has recklessly agreed on a visit to her father, Dennis, in another city a scary plane flight away.  Will the bed be cold? What will there be for breakfast?

There are deeper anxieties too.  Someone has cleared her personal things out to make room for Eloise. Someone who sleeps in her father’s room. Lucy. Eloise senses this will not make her mother happy. She knows what makes her mother mad, but can’t remember what her father’s mad was like.  Not knowing what the rules are, what is acceptable behaviour in this confusing new world, may lead to her humiliation, and an abrupt end to the visit.

Emily Duncan is a gifted writer who won the City of Literature Beyond Words Award at the 2018 Fringe Festival and has been named the next Robert Burns Fellow at Otago University. Her words can soar on “the viewless wings of poesy” or thump prosaically back down to earth. She balances strong passionate feeling with a quirky sense of humour.

Eloise in the Middle has had a long gestation. In Here/Now, Playmarket’s compilation of plays by award-winning NZ Playwrights, it is the only script that has not been produced. Partly because the play is in essence a monologue, it is in fact easy to follow and richly satisfying merely to read. Fortunately this exquisite stage interpretation by Prospect Park Productions (producer H-J Kilkelly) does the script full justice.

In Sara Georgie, we have the perfect Eloise. She inhabits the role completely, right from her tentative entry into an empty classroom, where she has her lunch alone, carefully eating her raisins one at a time.  As Eloise, Georgie is adorable, in dungarees and ponytail, with the sweet face of a cherub, and the ability to inspire the audience with an urge to protect her. Eloise tells her story of the visit to her father simply, like a class show-and-tell, displaying her pink backpack purchased for the trip which contains a mysterious present from Lucy. She is honest, anxious and caring. Everything she observes, does, and thinks is immaculately detailed, and through this we also gain insight into her separated parents, who despite their good intentions are essentially self-centred.

Georgie’s energetic physicality and facial expressions are often hilarious, but always remarkably authentic.  “This is my life!” says a boy from a school party, and I am reminded that Georgie has worked extensively with young people as teacher and facilitator, and evidently knows them well. Many of the rehearsals have deliberately been held in a classroom, and they are real children’s drawings that are hung around the stage set.

Georgie’s transformation to mother Karen is almost uncanny, so convincingly and smoothly is it effected. There are some lovely sequences of Karen left to her own devices, wandering round the empty flat, taking a bath, drinking and dancing with her friends. But though I am impressed by the sheer skill demonstrated with no more help than an added scarf, by now I have bonded with Eloise and wait eagerly for her return.

Director Jordan Dickson has ensured Eloise in the Middle has high production values – most of the crew previously worked at the Fortune. The Art Gallery space, surrounded by new black curtains, has been designed by Simon Anderson to reveal a classroom simply indicated on a raised platform, with white-painted table and chairs. The screen behind allows for creative work by the 3^rd year Communication Design students from Otago Polytechnic.  Anything Eloise draws to help tell her story appears, but digital animation also illuminates particular moments, like a drawing of a tiny hand clutching hold of one large finger. Best of all is the very special story, ostensibly compiled from home movie clips, that makes for such a moving and uplifting conclusion.

Garry Keirle’s lighting design, operated by Mac Veitch, is subtly effective, cold blue light underscoring Eloise’s nervous anticipation as she sets off into an unknown city at night. The sound, by Matt Morgan, is a particular delight, with little jokes like a burst of heavenly choir music every time Eloise raptly contemplates the wonder of apple juice. I am charmed too by the poster and programme picture, the silhouette of a busy little girl purposefully towing her suitcase, on the move! 

Duncan has applied her great acumen and insight to a significant issue of our time, dedicating Eloise in the Middle to all children of any age who have more than one family. We need to cherish work that helps us understand the fragile world of the child, their astonishing emotional intelligence and the funny little fears that loom so large to a seven year old. Duncan’s sharp observation and sensitivity remind me of Janet Frame’s short stories – Eloise would surely like My Cousins Who Could Eat Cooked Turnips.

Children, so often disconcertingly aware of the flaws of their elders, and grown-ups who are still hurting from their own childhoods, will recognise and feel validated by Eloise’s story. Any adult responsible for a child’s happiness will feel a stab of guilt over the harm done by failing to understand the child’s viewpoint. With humour and wry compassion for all involved, Duncan has shown us the selfishness of the so-called tug-of-love, through the creation of luminous Eloise – a warm, funny little girl who sets us the example of truly unconditional love.

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