Martha’s Vineyard, 1974: shooting on ‘Jaws’ has stalled. The film’s lead actors – Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss – are stuck on a boat, at the mercy of foul weather and a faulty mechanical co-star. Awash with alcohol and ambition, three hammered sharks start to bare their teeth…Directed by Guy Masterson, THE SHARK IS BROKEN reveals the hilarious behind-the-scenes drama on one of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters.
Need I add that Jaws will probably be admired for another 50 years, whereas The Shark Is Broken sinks from memory not long after you exit the Golden Theatre? As you sit watching three skilled and likable actors do celebrity impressions, there are decent punch lines, visual treats, even a poignant moment or two of harpooned masculinity. But this behind-the-scenes buddy drama—which swam from the Edinburgh Fringe to London’s West End and finally washed up on Broadway—is a handful of chum in a very big sea.
That extra-textural dramatic irony gnaws at The Shark Is Broken, which has less integrity as a play than as a thoroughly researched dress-up presentation for a history-of-film class. Ian Shaw, no great surprise, strongly resembles his father, and Brightman and Donnell have both been made up into ringers for Dreyfuss and Scheider. (Praise to Duncan Henderson’s costumes and to the wigs by Campbell Young Associates.) Everyone is meticulously re-creating those familiar voices — Brightman in particular zips right through Dreyfuss’s manic, cokie rants with gusto — and acting out his character’s well-known on-set habits. But although the actors are raring to go, the staging is cramped, with director Guy Masterson running out of ways to shuffle them around a boat that, yes, we know, is quite claustrophobic. (That’s surely the intent, but it makes the play seem smaller than it should.) More pressingly, the writing, intent on remaining lightly comic and knowing, keeps delivering what is familiar and unchallenging. Donnell, in a nod to Scheider’s love of tanning, strips down in an awkwardly staged moment to sunbathe, drawing titters from the audience, a gesture where fan service and beefcake collide.
2021 | West End |
West End |
2023 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Broadway Play | Joseph Nixon |
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