"After Life" at The Old Globe Gets Lost in the Snow

“Life After” is billed as a “new musical,” but it’s actually a new opera. Modern opera has limited box office appeal, hence “musical.”

With book, music and lyrics by Britta Johnson, who conceived the piece in her young teens, the plot centers on the psyche of a guilt-ridden 16-year-old who blames herself for her father’s death in a car accident on her birthday The self-involved adolescent schtick wears thin quickly, though extensive efforts are made to materialize the girl’s inner turmoil.

A three-girl Greek chorus called “the Furies” sings comments on the girl’s thoughts while moving clever bits of scenery on and off stage in front of a series of rear projections showing the bleak landscape of the Canadian winter—leafless trees, snow, some frightening looking suburban houses, the road where Dad dies.

The characters mainly stand in spotlights on a bare stage, singing—sometimes talking—to the often harsh, discordant music that is a hallmark of modern opera. Alice, the girl (Sophie Hearn, flat, shrill, but that’s the part), is required to stand alone when not dashing in and out of moveable doorways in search of, presumably, herself.

Emotional scenes are undercut by fast transitions to comic relief in the form of Alice’s pal, Hannah (Livvy Marcus), whose job is to deliver one-liners while wearing a clownish outfit. These transitions wax clumsy as the piece wears on and show that others had tried to inject structure and production values into this teenage Dear Diary confessional.

Alice’s 20-year-old sister (Charlotte Maltby, competent) snarls, paces and evinces impatience with her kid sister, who, she feels, was favored by Dad over her. This sibling rivalry only adds to the general angst that continues unabated until the final snowfall.

The parents are the most interesting characters. Dad (Bradley Dean, excellent) is a popular author of self-help books and gets the best songs, while his wife (Mamie Parris, touching) endures his frequent absences and declares herself to be just “the wife of a famous man.” Turns out Dad has been dallying with Alice’s teacher and was en route to a tryst when he lost control of his car.

This tedious cortège concludes with Alice coming to terms with loss in a hey-you’re-okay-I’m-okay riff from dead Dad’s books, whose platitudes reek of TV psychology programs.

The real star of the show is the orchestra, playing heroically unseen behind a scrim. The ensemble was warmly applauded when revealed in the lone curtain call.

“After Life” is on view on the Globe’s main stage through April 28, 2019.