Details

A man and a woman tell stories of ordinary and not-so-ordinary heart-break, each story accompanied by a single iconic image. A red telephone on a hotel bed. A subway station. The view from a window. A green Mercedes. The woman repeatedly recounts the story of the end of an affair; remembering it differently each time, while the man tells stories from many different people; snapshots of sorrow in a catalogue of suffering, break-ups, humiliations, deaths, bad dentistry and love letters that never arrive. Based on a project by renowned French conceptual artist Sophie Calle, this extraordinarily simple and intimate performance from Forced Entertainment explores how language, memory and forgetting move to contain, preserve or erase events; how people come to terms with trauma. Exquisite Pain is about love, loss, and the stories we tell ourselves when things have gone wrong. Co-producers: Theater der Welt 2005 (Stuttgart), BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen), The National Museum of Art, Design and Architecture (Oslo), Kaaitheater (Brussels), La Filature, scene nationale de Mulhouse, Tanzquartier Wien.

Creatives/Company

Company: Forced Entertainment
Director: Tim Etchells
Design: Richard Lowdon
Lighting: Nigel Edwards