A rickety boat. Three guys with egos. And a massive, deadly shark. What could go wrong?
Not what you might be expecting with The Shark Is Broken, the lyrical play that opened on Thursday in New York about the trio of actors who enlivened the pioneering Steven Spielberg-directed movie Jaws.
Set on a boat off Martha’s Vineyard during filming in 1974, The Shark Is Broken is a moving comedy-drama, mirroring the way the movie segued from horror to playfulness so effortlessly.
It stars Colin Donnell as Roy Scheider, the police chief Brody; Alex Brightman as Richard Dreyfuss, the oceanographer Hooper; and Ian Shaw as Robert Shaw, the shark hunter Quint. The play instantly earns legitimacy because Ian Shaw is Robert’s lookalike son and a co-writer.
It’s about the backstage frustration of making the first summer blockbuster, of course – one audience member in line at a preview wearing a “Jaws” T-shirt will be pleased – but captures much more in its net.
The long idle hours due to the mechanical sharks’ malfunctioning and the onboard anger between actors produce spiky discussions about responsibility, trauma, fatherhood, acting, commerce and alcohol, often lubricated by Scotch.
“It is the grit in the oyster that produces the pearl,” Shaw tells his companions, explaining how personal clashes can help fuel their art. He’s right – he’s often the play’s grit, and it has produced a little pearl of a play.
The script – and Guy Masterson’s unfussy direction – never lets interest lag over the play’s 90, intermission-less minutes, the tension, humour, depth, silliness and horror coming like waves lapping the boat.
Quint’s famous USS Indianapolis speech – “1100 men went in the water, 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest” – forms the play’s backbone as Shaw struggles to initially memorise it, then rewrites it and finally delivers it masterfully.
Ian Shaw co-wrote the script with Joseph Nixon and based it on interviews, books and documentaries.
They have made Regular Joes of cinematic heroes, an even harder task for the younger Shaw when it is your late dad you are portraying and creating dialogue for.
His Shaw is a squinty, no-nonsense, Shakespeare-quoting tough guy with financial and alcoholic problems who suffers fools poorly.
Brightman’s Dreyfuss is a bundle of nervous insecurity – “Am I any good? As an actor?” he asks – while he thirsts for fame and yet also, perhaps impossibly, respectability. His physical humour is awesome.
Donnell as Scheider is the sensible one, a newspaper-reading, controlled pro, inserting dry facts into the discussion, sitting angularly and trying to keep the other two civil.
The audience is taken back to the insecurity before the release of Jaws and the worry anyone has if the project we’re working on is worth it.
“Do you really think people are going to be talking about this in 50 years?” asks Shaw. He later offers this poor prediction: “This film is destined for the dustbin of history.”