Eleven characters in search of a land they can call home meet a director with a singular vision in Greek playwright Andreas Flourakis’s remarkably topical I Want A Country, the latest from City Garage Theatre.

Though written back in 2012 in response to the Greek financial crisis of the early 2010s, I Want A Country (translated into English by Eleni Drivas) remains as of-the-moment as a play can be in its examination of what might constitute the ideal homeland for its characters without a country in a world gone mad.

 As to just who and how many these characters are, playwright Flourakis leaves that up to each individual director, its thirty or so previous productions having featured as few as four and as many as two-dozen actors performing a script composed of a series of declarative sentences and questions with only an occasional stage direction here or there to interrupt the flow.

Director Frédérique Michel opts for a cast of eleven actor ranging in age from their early twenties to over sixty, and part of what makes her direction so remarkable is her skill at determining just who says what.

The nameless characters she has imagined include a 20something couple (Liam Galaz Howard and Alyssa Ross), a pair of female friends (or are they lovers?) (Angela Beyer and Alyssa Frey), and a couple (Martha Duncan and Bo Roberts) in their “golden” years.

There’s also a young firebrand (Daniel Strausman), an opposite-sex couple of privilege and financial means (Lenka Janischova Shockley and David E. Frank), and a twosome who might be father and son (Andy Kallock ans Shane Weikel), and it’s to Michel’s credit that the lines they’ve been assigned suit each character to a T.

They brave the elements. They do their best to survive. And as they do so, they debate.

Should the country of their dreams be sun-drenched or snowy, should there be children and/or pets, should there be social security for “old people” or have citizens of a certain age outlived their usefulness?

 What kind of jobs should be prioritized, how much control should the government and the banks exert, and what is it that ultimately unites a country?

Staged less imaginatively or with a longer running time than its under-an-hour, I Want A Country might come across more like a focus-group discussion than a play, and end up outstaying its welcome.

 Fortunately for audiences, no one has ever accused City Garage of a lack of imagination, and director Michel signals from the get-go in a dance/movement-inspired opening sequence that her vision for I Want A Country will be as strikingly stylized as it is unapologetically political.

 A cast of City Garage regulars and newcomers prove more than up to the tasks Michel has assigned them, Charles A Duncombe is once again on the top of his game as set, lighting, and audio designer, Josephine Poinsot costumes the cast in character-appropriate garb in City Garage’s signature red and black, and Anthony M Sannazzaro’s video editing and projections give us bird-filled skies, stormy seas and more.

Holly Dunnigan is assistant director.

 Like Andrei Kureichik’s Insulted. Belarus, Andreas Flourakis’s I Want A Country spotlights City Garage’s knack for bringing innovative European theater to American audiences. As dynamically staged as it is thought-provoking and topical, I Want A Country is well worth an hour of your time.

City Garage, 2525 Michigan Ave. Building T1, Santa Monica. Through March 16. Saturdays at 8:00. Sundays at 4:00.
www.citygarage.org

–Steven Stanley
February 9, 2025
Photos: Paul Rubenstein

Tags: Andreas Flourakis, City Garage, Eleni Drivas, Los Angeles Theater Review