Forced Entertainment's Adaptation of Sophie Calle's Exquisite Pain

The dramatic form of Exquisite Pain (2005), a recent production by the leading British performance group Forced Entertainment, can be regarded as non-standard in several respects. First of all, the performances of Forced Entertainment are so different from 'conventional' plays that they have been championed as an example of post-dramatic theatre. Since theatre and drama have at all times tested the limits of dramatic rules and conventions, this label is more suited to emphasise that postdramatic theatre goes beyond an Aristotelian model of action-centred~ plot-driven drama than to suggest a categorical break with drama in general. As earlier shows of Forced Entertainment, Exquisite Pain once again does not rely on a plot-driven structure; instead, as I attempt to show in the following, it can be described as a story-driven performance. Drawing on trauma theory, this essay will explore the gradual transition from 'unstory' to story in Exquisite Pain. The performance exhibits a second unusual feature: In contrast to all previous works of Forced Entertainment, it was not devised from scratch by the company's artistic director Tim Etchells and the company members, but adapts an already existing text in a surprisingly cautious manner. This text is part of a multi-media installation by the French conceptual artist Sophie Calle, entitled Doleur exquise (Exquisite Pain). Therefore, Forced Entertainment's Exquisite Pain is remarkable in yet another respect, since it transforms a museum exhibit into a theatrical event in times of abounding novel and film adaptations in the theatre, this is still an uncommon form