Athens, 1801. A teenage boy watches in horror as the decorative sculptures that adorn the 2,500-year-old monuments on the Acropolis are systematically ripped from their facades and stacked in large wooden boxes. Desperate and confused, he stows away on a ship and accompanies the marbles to England, embarking on a journey of despair …

Along the way, the boy begins to anthropomorphize the statues, bringing them back to life. He converses with the Caryatid, torn from her base in the porch of the sacred Erechtheion temple, and resolves to make it his life’s mission to return the sculptures to their place of origin.

The rock musical “Take Me Home,” based on the comic book “Grandpa, will you tell me a story?” by Manolis Moumalidis, is a clever and emotive retelling of the appalling story of history’s most notorious art crime: the abduction of the Parthenon Marbles by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, in the early 19th century.

Directed by Dimitris Malisovas and presented at the Athens Concert Hall on April 27, the musical hopes to stir hearts and raise greater awareness about the theft of the 2,500-year-old sculptures from the Sacred Rock of Athens.  

The musical forms part of the “Athena Take Me Home” protest movement, launched by the award-winning Tranoulis Fashion House in Athens in 2018. The brainchild of costume designer Theodoros Tranoulis, the movement started as a voice of protest, through fashion, against the theft of the Marbles over 200 years ago. Inspired by his own interactions with legendary Greek actress, politician and campaigner Melina Mercouri, American film and theatre director Jules Dassin, and director Yannis Diamantopoulos, visionaries for the return the sculptures to Greece, Thanoulis has developed a fashion collection based on ancient Greek designs.

The movement made its first successful protest at the British Museum in London in January of that year, where Athina Tranoulis, accompanied by the President of the Olympic champions, Voula Kozomboli and the vice-president Evi Moraitidou, dressed as ancient Greek goddesses, were photographed with a large crowd of Greeks and other supporters. The photos went viral.

The first official performance of the Take Me Home movement took place at the Zappeion Magaron in the heart of Athens in October 2018, with a cast of 200 performers. Choreographed by Michalis Gkousis with Filitsa Kalogerakou in the role of the sad, homesick Caryatid, the performers wore costumes from the “Athena by Tranoulis” collection.

For more information (in Greek) about the “Take Me Home” movement, go here.