Tucked in a cafe off the edge of the Meadows in Edinburgh, a roomful of strangers stare down at their phones. Perched at a corner table, Terry (Terry O’Donovan) gets a text, and our phones vibrate. Terry’s ex-boyfriend Luka has passed away. His screen is shared with ours, and we see the flood of condolence texts, calls and emails pile up from people he hasn’t spoken to in years.
Exploring intimacy and loneliness, User Not Found is a beautiful song of love and letting go. Inspired by Caroline Twigg’s Guardian article about dealing with her late husband’s digital afterlife, site-based theatre company Dante or Die offers an opportunity to get rid of it all. Having been named Luka’s online legacy executor with the new app Fidelis, Terry has to choose whether to keep or delete.
Immense care is taken to create a feeling of intimacy. Under Daphna Attias’s direction, Terry treads around tables, his live monologue gently filtering into our ears. O’Donovan’s performance is raw and warm, welcoming us in so that our gaze is never intrusive. It all feels genuine, strange for something so buried under layers of performance.
Grappling with both the comfort and toxicity of social media, Chris Goode’s lyrical script is hurt, angry and hopeful. Though the impact of the possible deletion of Luka’s digital presence is not explored past its impact on Terry, and the download button doesn’t seem to be an option, Goode’s focus is elsewhere. With his tender script, he hands us each the weight of the internet and asks how we get closure in a world where nothing ever switches off.
With a smart actor and live technology, User Not Found makes use of a newly intimate form of storytelling. We watch Terry in love and in loss. We watch him wait. We watch the sun come up with him.
Individually, we touch our phones almost 3,000 times a day, but User Not Found reminds us that nothing can fill in for skin on skin.
- At Traverse at Jeelie Piece Cafe, Edinburgh, until 26 August.
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