I Don't Even Miss You by Elena Belyea

Non-binary computer programmer Basil (they/them) wakes one morning to discover they are alone. They spend the next three years searching for others and build Orchid, a digital assistant, for company, until one day, when Basil meets a companion who leaves suddenly and without warning. Reeling from this loss, Basil attempts to write and record a musical that will serve as an archive of their life after they’re gone. Using live music, dance, and video, I Don’t Even Miss You is multidisciplinary exploration of love and legacy that asks how gender, identity, and friendship can exist with no one to perceive them.

Tiny Bear Jaws Theatre

Riser Edmonton, Co-Lab, Edmonton, Alberta, 2022

Director

Director: Emma Tibaldo
Playwright, Performer, Producer, Co-music: Elena Eli Belyea
Sound and Video Design, Producer, Co-music: Tori Morrison
Music Dramturg, Composition support, and Associate Sound Designer: Miranda Martini
Costume Design: Whittyn Jason
Assistant Director, Understudy, Dance Captain: Sarah Emslie
Stage manager: Andrea Handal Rivera
AI Consultant: Kory Mathewson
Choreographer: Gianna Vacirca
Lighting Designer: Daniela Masellis
Captions and ASL consultant: Connor Yuzwenko-Martin

Review By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca
If you think that the last two years have kicked the crap out of satire, think what they’ve done to speculative fiction. Or existential crises. With I Don’t Even Miss You, premiering in RISER Edmonton’s 2022 series, Tiny Bear Jaws, those intrepid theatrical explorers, sink their teeth into our collective sense that the familiar is suddenly incomprehensible. That the world has changed fundamentally for no discernible reason, and somehow wriggled out of every off-the-rack size of meaning that meaningful comes in. Its connections may be as global as the internet, but they are now, both literally and figuratively, ungraspable (not to say unhuggable).
Basil (they/them), the hero of Elena Belyea’s new play, wakes up to discover that the world has gone contact-less overnight. It’s now in practice a transaction with the digital. They’re in familiar surroundings but they are suddenly, utterly, alone. Basil has to make their own fun — not to mention create friendships, family, romance, love, gender, formerly byproducts of human connectivity — from memory, or digital ether.
Can it be done? Can it be sustained? I Don’t Even Miss You wonders about that. And Basil gives it their best shot.
Their continuing resourcefulness will hit your heart and give it a crank. It’s a show that speaks in an original way about a predicament that has suddenly elided into … life. I’ve found I Don’t Even Miss You an experience that’s hard to shake off afterward. But then, as we know from productions like Cleave or Miss Katelyn’s Grade Threes Prepare For The Inevitable, when you see a Tiny Bear Jaws show you’re apt to leave with little bite marks on your psyche.
Basil (Belyea herself, and Sarah Emslie at some performances) is the star of their own show, a performer in the production they create, moment to moment, in live performance, dance, music, video, for an audience that is theoretical. Call Basil a life impresario, if you will. Collaborating on a multi-disciplinary ‘musical’ about aloneness is a particularly theatrical kind of contradiction, one that intrigues the playwright and a bevy of creative technical design collaborators among them Tiny Bear Jaws producer/ video and sound designer Tori Morrison, director Emma Tibaldo, lighting designer Daniela Masellis, choreographer Gianna Vacirca.
In their punchy, exuberant dance numbers, Belyea’s Basil, small but fierce in a blue snowsuit (costume designer: Whittyn Jason), exercises an unstoppable urge to perform. In Vacirca’s movement tracks, they do mighty battle with the invisible — a celebratory assertion of the will against, what?, the improbable? the inevitable? the air? The rhythmic electronic pop score, which divides into songs in Basil’s new ‘musical’, is the co-creation of Belyea and Morrison (with Miranda Martini).
Can you even call I Don’t Even Miss You a solo show? Basil shares the stage with the digital assistant they’ve created. Orchid (the voice of Vanessa Sabourin) is an A.I. who’s programmed to manage Basil’s digital memory bank, onscreen captioning, music. And in the course of I Don’t Even Miss You, in which time has the weird fluidity that we know from our last two years — what? is it Tuesday? a month has gone by? — their exchanges evolve. “Orchid, play Tonight,” or “Orchid, pause recording” become something more human, more shared. Orchid can chat; Orchid can play your favourite music if you’re upset.
In front of a double-screen like big pages of an open book, Basil presents their autobiography as a succession of short “chapters.” They breezily juxtapose innocuous titles like “Family” or “Birthdays” or “Puberty” with titles like “Survival” or “Basil’s Worst Day … a day that began like any other.” And we know where that’s led.
When you’re all alone, like Basil, little things, like the last bite of your mom’s stash of chocolate chip cookies, are momentous. The chapters are separated by lists of small, ordinary “things I’m grateful for” — bathmats, piñatas, fanny packs, watermelon seed spitting contests … — and Basil’s energetic dance musical numbers.
Belyea has written before now about the tension between belonging and having your own identity. If Cleave and Everyone We Know Will Be There are close-ups, the one a family and the other a teen party, I Don’t Even Miss You ups the ante on self-creation and self-reliance. It’s life as a ritual of memory and performance in which you have to step up to create and program your own stage partners, make your own lists, write your own signature tunes, and dance your own dances — against a backdrop of fathomless loneliness. The rest is silence.

Review: I DON'T EVEN MISS YOU is a Thought-Provoking Sci-Fi Drama By Sarah Dussome
Basil is thoroughly, utterly alone. Streets and houses stand empty, vehicles sit unoccupied, and T.V. and radio networks are non-existent. For the first 3 months, Basil revels in exploring strangers' houses, gallivanting solo through malls, and playing dress-up in ritzy clothing stores. However, their solitude's novelty eventually crumbles and is replaced with crippling loneliness. Desperate for any semblance of human companionship, Basil harnesses their computer programming skills to create Orchid, an AI friend.
Presented by eclectic Edmonton theatre company Tiny Bear Jaws, I Don't Even Miss You is a compelling sci-fi drama written by and starring Elena Belyea. Collaboratively brought to life by RISER Edmonton and RISER Toronto with support from Toronto's Why Not Theatre. Haunting, heartfelt, and laugh-out-loud funny, I Don't Even Miss You is directed by Emma Tibaldo and takes centre stage at CO*LAB, an intimate black box performance space.
From the moment we first meet non-binary computer programmer, Basil (Belyea), it is impossible to not be immersed in their plight for connection and finding beauty in their eerily silent world. Through quirky song and dance numbers to heart-rending soliloquies to humorous banter with Orchid (voiced by Vanessa Sabourin), Basil's emotional journey is utterly compelling. They relay their life story through over 2 dozen short chapters, reminiscing about their childhood, cringing over awkward teenage memories, and recalling their journey through university. Belyea's script brims with poetic musings, self-deprecating humour, and tearful revelations and explores the prevalent themes of gender identity and social isolation without being heavy-handed.
Complementing Basil's story are whimsical technical elements including Tori Morrison's image projections on a backdrop resembling an open book and emotive lighting by Daniela Masellis. The minimal set features objects including a ukulele, coat rack, laptop trolley, and articles of clothing folded neatly on the floor. Despite some sporadic hiccups, the captions displayed above the stage add a unique and inclusive touch. Combined with Belyea's moving script and poignant performance, I Don't Even Miss You is a moving piece of theatre that lingers with you long after its unconventional conclusion.