The Disorientation of Butterflies

This one-hour-and-45-minute musical about suicide and self-mutilation is a distant country cousin of "Next to Normal"—without the humor or any hope of redemption. Thus it's very distant and a downer.

Alaska Reece Vance, who wrote the libretto and lyrics and also directs, seems to have based her earnest story—at least in part—on a real person or situation, thus sacrificing dramatic interest (and any insight into the problems) to "the truth." She also appears to have attempted to give her six able actors roles of equal size, which hardly serves the story of one woman and her demons. The other five characters often evaporate into window dressing, and the twisty denouement, a last-ditch effort to involve most of the characters (one of whom makes no sense at all), is endless.

The wounded butterfly metaphor is tortured, as are rhymes such as "can't relax" with "panic attacks." An attempt to be a bit upbeat fares no better: "Butterfly wings are delicate things." Nathan A. Schmidt's music is aptly dirgelike, for the most part.

Presented by the Drifting Theatre as part of the New York International Fringe Festival at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center's Flamboyán Theatre, 107 Suffolk St., NYC. Aug. 17–27. Remaining performances: Sat., Aug. 20, 2:15 p.m.; Sun., Aug. 21, 6 p.m.; Thu., Aug. 25, 4:15 p.m.; Sat., Aug. 27, 8:45 p.m. (866) 468-7619 or www.fringenyc.org.