George | Efthimis Filippou & Panagiotis Melidis (Larry Gus)

“Ladies and gentlemen, my darling children, it’s been two whole years since I first heard this here story. It all began quite suddenly…” So begins “George”. The story centers on the final days in the life of a man aged around 65, as told to us by the narrator Angeliki Papoulia, who is accompanied on stage at Onassis Stegi by Panagiotis Melidis (Larry Gus) on the church organ, Manousos Klapakis on percussion, and the 18-member Corfu Men’s Choir.

George falls ill suddenly, reminisces about his life suddenly, and dies quite suddenly too. Centered around an illness, various figures parade through the work: fathers and mothers, partners and children, not to mention sixty men who get on board a boat bound for an island. The work unfolds like a surreal spell that tackles the inescapabilty of death, and is punctuated by musical interludes sung by a large male choir.

“A science fiction monologue with musical interludes” is how the writer Efthimis Filippou describes “George”, before going on to say: “It’s a work about the nature and causes and aesthetics of a beastly, deadly disease.” A “spy story” is how composer Panagiotis Melidis describes it, “only here, the murderer is inside you. It’s an exercise in self-assault that includes a survival guide – what to do when your own self, your various possible variants, attack you en masse, like a George to the power of sixty.”

“George” will be premiering twice over: live at Onassis Stegi, with Angeliki Papoulia performing as the narrator on stage alongside the large Corfu Men’s Choir, and as a collector’s edition vinyl – by US label FourFour Records and Onassis Foundation – with actor Ben Whishaw giving a vocal performance as the narrator.

• “George” is a record born out of a conversation Efthimis and Panagiotis had in December 2018. Panagiotis handed Efthimis a hard drive filled with original music. Efthimis then wrote the text in November 2019. Among the first musical ideas was a piece titled “Super Soft Guitar” but the music, in its original form, would be abandoned and re-written from scratch during the first half of 2020. The work’s title changed many times. The only song to feature on the record was written specially for the Corfu Men’s Choir. The record runs for 40 minutes and 35 seconds. Ben Whishaw recorded his narration in London. “George” is being released as a collector’s edition vinyl, designed by Vassilis Marmatakis, on FourFour Records – the label of US music producer Jonathan Galkin.
  
• British actor Ben Whishaw rose to fame thanks to his unforgettable performance in the film adaptation of Patrick Süskind’s novel “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” (2006). He was also among the leads in “The Lobster” (2015), the award-winning film by Yorgos Lanthimos co-written by Efthimis Filippou. He drew the attention of theater-lovers at the tender age of 24 while playing Hamlet in a production of the Shakespeare play staged at the Old Vic Theater in 2004.

• “George” is Efthimis Filippou’s third collaboration with Onassis Stegi, after the works “EMATA” (“BLOODS”) and “ROB”.

• The orchestration of “George” was treated “monolithically”, according to its composer, consciously avoiding the approach of creating a musical underbed set below or alongside the spoken word. The original music by Melidis makes use of only one musical instrument – the church organ – and a male choir.