Expectations for Argonautika were high—perhaps too high—especially among theatergoers who saw writer/director Mary Zimmerman’s Pericles on the Shakespeare Theatre’s Lansburgh stage a few years ago. That memorable production of Shakespeare’s play was extraordinarily inventive and magical. Some visual elements used in Pericles are recycled in Argonautika. Sadly missing, though, is a text that conveys the excitement of the perilous yet adventuresome journeys Jason and his sailors, the Argonauts, undertake. By using contemporary speech and her own script, Zimmerman has made the Greek myth accessible to a modern audience but in the process has lost much of the charm.

If theater were measured in the same way as sports—wins and losses—then the score for Argonautika—at the Lansburgh through March 2—would be Washington 1, Chicago 0. The actors in Argonautika, many of them members of Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre Company, are simply not in the same league as those we’re used to seeing on the Shakespeare Theatre’s stages. Although Chicago actors have a reputation for being rough and ready, tough, “edgy,” none of these qualities is evident here.

Jason, played by Jake Suffian, is such a wimp that you can’t help wondering whether he would be able to cajole thirsty actors to go to a local dive for a beer, let alone inspire sailors to risk a rough sea and the unknown beyond in pursuit of the Golden Fleece. In the second act, what should be a truly climactic moment for Jason and Medea (played as a kvetch by Atley Loughridge) is barely audible, tedious, and seemingly endless. And so it goes, line by line, character by character. The only affecting performance is that of Lisa Tejero as Hera, the all-knowing, all-seeing busybody.

The bold set, slightly off-kilter costumes, puppets, and actors who “fly” create an intriguingly otherworldly atmosphere. There’s plenty of fantasy in the nymphs, harpies, and furies. The sea monster, however, could be an aquatic cousin of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster. In fact, Argonautika is all too reminiscent of children’s theater.