Greeking out: Never too cool for school

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https://www.melbournefringe.com.au/whats-on/events/greeking-out

Date Reviewed: 06/10/2025

When my kids were little, we went on a family vacay to a fancy resort in Crete. There, the hotel animation team staged Minoan-inspired plays, sometimes with life-sized puppets, using all manner of imaginative storytelling techniques.

Rebecca Perich’s Greeking out: Never too cool for school took me back to those starry summer nights of laughter and learning. It has a similar energy, minus the Cretan sunsets and rest of the animation team.

It’s less theatre and more a smart, sassy, one-woman crash course on Greek mythology. Teaching and acting are, after all, close cousins with both demanding performance, timing, and the ability to hold a room’s attention with sheer force of personality. Perich does that.

Written and performed by Perich, who’s aptly billed in the program as a “repressed academic,” the show transforms The Motley Spielhaus, a brand-new pop-up black box theatre beside the Queen Victoria Market, into a classroom.

Perich strides onstage as Professor Ari, a slightly frazzled Greek mythology teacher with mischief in her eyes, setting out her classroom rules: no phones ringing, no recordings, no mythology (yes, she says that), no smoking, no toilet-break permission slips, no opinions, and a question time promised at the end. Then, in rapid-fire delivery, she launches into a spirited lesson splicing ancient myths with modern mayhem, where Zeus meets Logan Roy, and Ariadne meets #MeToo.

The show’s feminist line gives it bite. When the professor’s persona collapses and she becomes Ariadne, the princess who helped Theseus defeat the Minotaur only to be abandoned by him, Perich reframes the myth from the heroine’s perspective with wit and emotional force.

But the tone sometimes lurches from comic lightness to dark without enough breathing space. One moment we’re laughing at a cheeky pop quiz; the next we’re plunged into the confronting territory of bestiality and sexual trauma. The ambitious mix of slides, mythological categories (C.H.O.P.), and Minotaur “trifles” creates layers of complexity that feels overwhelming in a one-hour slot.

The intentional phone call that resets the lecture is a brilliant dramatic device for revealing Ariadne’s identity, however it also interrupts the rhythm just as we’re invested in the first narrative.

When Perich hits her stride, she’s electric, sharp, funny, and capable of making the most reluctant student feel invested in mythology. The performance crackles with intelligence and personality, even when it slightly overindulges in its own cleverness. It’s a refreshing feminist remix of myth that keeps you engaged.

At times, it feels a little rushed. Even question time gets swallowed up to make way for the next performance in the tight schedule.

I did feel a little robbed by this as I had so many questions! I wanted to ask about the layered identities in her work, what drew her to mythology in the first place, and how her own background informs her interpretation of Ariadne’s story. I am intrigued as to how this Venezuelan-born Croatian Australian first found her fascination in Greek mythology, and to give a definition as to what she means when she says she is a “tropicobalkankan” theatre-maker. 

Did I learn anything new about the Minotaur? Not really, but it was a refresher course for all I learnt during those balmy holiday nights while on that Cretan holiday.

Highlights

• Perich’s rapid-fire wit and engaging presence
  
• The PowerPoint presentation
• The unexpected Ariadne reveal
  
• The brave, feminist inclusions to the narrative
  
• The cute little Spielhaus theatre, beside the Queen Victoria Market
  
• Lovers of Greek mythology
  
• Feminists
  
• Teachers could learn a trick or two from Perich’s style
  
• Anyone who things Zeus could use a good HR department
  

Who’s it for?

• Lovers of Greek mythology
  
• Feminists
  
• Teachers could learn a trick or two from Perich’s style
  
• Anyone who things Zeus could use a good HR department
  

Suggestion:

Perich can add more to her series and market it to family audiences (minus the bits about bestiality) for a series at the Hellenic Museum. Are you listening Sarah Craig?

The performance, written and performed by Rebecca Perich is performed at 5:45pm daily until 12 October. 

Reviewed by Mary Sinanidis