Sara Dabney Tisdale and David Zimmerman in Rorschach Theatre’s ‘Minotaur’ (C Stanley Photography via Rorschach Theatre)

The D.C. theater community must be eating a lot of strained yogurt right now, because everywhere you look, there’s another take on a Hellenic myth or an epic.

Last month, we were treated to the Studio Theatre’s An Iliad. Just last week, Taffety Punk gave us a rendition of Shakespeare’s Rape of Lucrece. And next month, the Arena Stage will host Tony Award winning writer-director Mary Zimmerman’s take on Metamorphoses which is technically by a Roman (Ovid), but nonetheless contains Greek gods galore.

And then there’s Rorschach Theater’s The Minotaur, which opened last night and runs through February 17 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. Playwright Anna Ziegler has modernized the famous half-man-half-bull legend not just by throwing in references to reality shows and Facebook, but also by asking some thoroughly post-modern questions, such as: “What separates hero from monster, or seduction from death?” and “If everything is being guided by fate or forces beyond one’s control, is there such a thing as choice?”

These are all lofty philosophical goals, but in the end, this production falls short of giving us anything profound to hang onto.

The basic Minotaur story goes like this: King Minos of Crete is supposed to sacrifice a bull he received as a gift from Poseidon, the god of the sea. But Minos shirks his end of the deal, so the vengeful Poseidon punishes him by making his wife, uh, fall in love with the bull (who was, admittedly, quite the hottie) and then a quick wink-wink-nudge-nudge later produce a son that is half human and half bovine, called the Minotaur. (You can’t fault those Greek gods for lack of creativity.)

Eventually, hero Theseus kills the Minotaur, navigating his way through a labyrinth using a ball of yarn provided by the Minotaur’s half-sister Ariadne, who is in love with Theseus. (And who in the legend he later abandons on a different island, because you can take the dashing womanizer out of Athens but you can’t take the dashing womanizer out of, like, all the ladies, am I right?)

Played as theater in the round, with a lovely, gloomy spider web set by Justin Titley David Ghatan, this Minotaur; does feature strong performances by two of its leads.

David Zimmerman is captivating as the jaded yet vulnerable man-eating bull-man, who like Frankenstein’s monster just wants love but whose innate flaws will forever self-sabotage that pursuit.

Sara Dabney Tisdale’s Ariadne exudes the naïve energy and enthusiasm of a privileged college freshman, left to her own devices for the first time and incapable of grasping that the guy she likes is “just not that into her.” (She justifies her obsession by babbling about how they have so much in common: “We both like TV—and making friends!”) Ooh, honey.

As the Buzz Lightyear of the ancient world, Theseus, all egotistical, single-minded beefcake, Josh Sticklin fares less well, but that might be more the fault of a physical miscast. (I remember when “The Town” came out and some people suggested that Ben Affleck should have switched roles with Jeremy Renner, and I wonder what might have happened with a Zimmerman-for-Sticklin swap.)

At any rate, in general, there’s a big quality difference between plays that tell and plays that show, and this is definitely one of those that explains more than it demonstrates.

There are trappings in the script already, with some earsore lines ranging from awkward — “You think our mothers were the only ones to fancy a fuck in a field?” — to the downright clichéd — “I need someone to see me.” “I see you.”

At times,I found myself counting down the minutes until Zimmerman’s charismatic Minotaur would re-enter, just to break up the play’s self-importance, like a horned Joker shouting from his maze, “Why so serious?”

Still, written words are flexible, which also made me question whether Rorschach’s Minotaur might have been a more seductive beast under a different director; someone who could injected some humor into Ziegler’s flashes of great writing, and given the rest more action.

I mean, Ziegler deliberately writes the Greek chorus as a classic joke setup —a priest, a rabbi and a lawyer—so doesn’t that give it the right to occasionally be funny, too?

This was a “joint world premiere” with Synchronicity, a theater company in my hometown of Atlanta with which I happen to be familiar. They took on Ziegler’s script first, in October, to rave reviews.

According to Curt Holman of Creative Loafing Atlanta, Synchronicity director Rachel May inserted “some bawdy slapstick as well, such as sequence in which the king’s wife […] hides in a hilariously fake wooden cow to seduce the divine bull and, later, spawn the Minotaur.”

Mmm, yes. Where’s some bawdy slapstick when you need it?

The Minotaur runs through February 17 at Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H Street NE; (202) 399-7993 rorschachtheatre.com/. Tickets $15-30.

Correction: Due to an editing error, this review originally gave the wrong name for the set designer. David Ghatan designed the sets for The Minotaur.