‘I decided to continue… until I had got over my pain by comparing it with other people’s, or had worn out my own story through sheer repetition.’
A man and a woman tell stories of ordinary and not-so-ordinary heart-break.
The woman repeatedly recounts the story of the end of an affair; each time remembering it differently, adding and subtracting details, finding new ways to both remember and forget what happened. The man tells stories from many different people; each a snapshot of sorrow, big or small, that takes its place in a growing catalogue of suffering, break-ups, humiliations, deaths, bad dentistry and love letters that never arrive.
In this simple and intimate performance Forced Entertainment explore 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.
'Britain's most brilliant, experimental theatre company.'
The Guardian
