Backstage
Riffs and Redemption Back on the road with Riflemind
In terms of human interaction,
then every night go out onstage
cost of making music are thin
a theatre company and a rock
with them, until ‘creative
on the ground. The sex, the
band have almost nothing in
differences’ take their toll and
drugs, the gradual ruination of
common. Yes, they both involve
the band atomises. Some time
the guitar-based friendships of
collective performance on a
later, needing the money and,
youth, the cauterising of the soul
stage in front of an audience,
armed with the hope that
by untold wealth - these are the
but there all similarities end.
enough calming water has
things that the Greeks would
A play calls for a gathering
flowed under the bridge,
have contemplated in their
of collaborators who, however
you reunite.
tragedies if only the Fender
intense the personal tensions,
Feature by Jasper Rees
9
It’s remarkable there aren’t
Stratocaster had been invented in time.
know that at the end of the run
more stage plays about rock.
they will disperse to the four
There are countless back-
winds, perhaps never to meet
catalogue musicals, but they’re
Riflemind, which was staged by
Andrew Upton’s new play,
again. In a rock band, you
part of an ageing pop act’s
Philip Seymour Hoffman last year
Photography by
hunker down in the studio for
corporate brand these days.
in Sydney and under the same
Kerry Brown
months with the same people,
Actual plays about the human
director has now come to the