Thousands of years ago, the city-states of Greece would hold festivals to honor those who authored the most compelling dramas. Citizens would crowd enormous amphitheaters to watch as actors unfolded stories of heroes and demigods, glory and tragedy.

One such myth was the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur. Theseus, the Athenian prince, sailed to Crete in order to liberate his people from tribute to the bovine monster. With the aid of Ariadne, the Bull’s half-sister, Theseus succeeded in his struggle. The hero had promised to marry Ariadne in exchange for her assistance, but abandoned her on the isle of Naxos en route to Athens. Eventually, Ariadne is redeemed by Dionysus, who takes her as his consort.

This tale, like many Greek myths, is one of heroism and hubris. We cheer for Theseus’s victory, but look with shame on his abandonment of Ariadne. Rarely, however, do we attempt to re-conceive the story from Ariadne’s perspective.

Our sentiments towards Ariadne are fleeting. Because we know that she will ultimately marry a god, we do not dwell excessively on her sorrows. Yet it is precisely this plight that playwright Eugenie Chan has attempted to showcase in her acclaimed one-act drama, Bone to Pick, showing at the Cutting Ball Theater in San Francisco.

Chan, like many contemporary playwrights, seeks to make her story “new.” She places her protagonist—now glibly named “Ria”—in a wartime setting somewhere in the American Southwest. Ria works as a waitress in Nowheresville, USA, while Theo, the James Dean army rogue, swaggers into her diner each day for tending.

The play that Chan presents is a monologue. One woman plays Ria, responding to the invisible demands of both Theo and her boss, “King-Man.” Theo wants meat and seeks it in the form of a bull kept in the diner’s basement. Ria holds the key to the freezer, and she is used and abused as Theo pursues it.

At the end of the play, the audience erupted. The small theater could only hold thirty to forty viewers, and of that, at least fifteen were on their feet, clapping madly. They must have felt a connection to the waitress, although it did not look like many of them spent their days bussing tables. Maybe it was the feminist perspective, the voicing of the silent heroine at home, but most of the more vocal audience members were bourgeois men who seemed at most ambivalent to feminism. Perhaps it was the nod to the Greeks, the retelling of an ancient myth. Yet there were certainly not enough tweed jackets in the room to dismiss all the theatergoers as classics majors.

What then, could motivate such enthusiasm? Perhaps the strange and abrasive pot-shots at American foreign policy that haphazardly riddled the production provide an answer.

Art is inevitably political. It debates beauty and beauty relies on opinion, which, in turn, depends on politics. The ancient tale of Theseus and the Minotaur intends to teach its viewers the consequences of pride and broken promises; it reminded the Greeks that even wily heroes were subject to the will of something greater than themselves.

Bone to Pick retells its source-myth from the perspective of Ariadne. Yet it loses something intrinsic and potent in its reimagining and politicizing. In the struggle for originality, Ms. Chan appears to have lost the essence of her message. I do not mean to say that the play was not entertaining; Paige Rogers, the actress who performed the part of Ria, acted masterfully. Her monologue felt less like a speech than a conversation in which her audience was entrusted with the role of a sympathetic and attentive friend. Ms. Rogers was riveting to watch; she played upon emotions like piano keys. The audience laughed, sighed, grumbled and cried alongside her. She redeemed her script from its triteness, making the play a pleasure to watch.

Still, I have a “bone to pick” with this production. Entertaining though it was, I did not walk away with those profound questions that such a “post-modern reimagining” should inspire. I did not, as a consequence of this performance, reconsider the functions of myth or the capacities of high art. I did not think about the ramifications of Theseus in our contemporary world; Iraq and the Minotaur simply do not equate. Nevertheless, Rogers spun the story into something interesting. As such, I can only complain so much.