Theatre Review: The Shark Is Broken Charts Jaws’ Troubled Waters
Jarrott Productions offers a claustrophobic play diving into artistic egos
Reviewed by Cat McCarrey, Fri., Feb. 21, 2025
Three actors, trapped on a boat for nine weeks.
It sounds like the start to a bad joke, but it was reality for Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, and Roy Scheider during the notoriously difficult Jaws shoot. Playwrights Joseph Nixon and Ian Shaw (yep, there is a relation – he’s Robert Shaw’s son) crafted The Shark Is Broken around those three men in a boat offshore of Martha’s Vineyard, forced to wait around during film delays due to bad weather or too much boat traffic or endless mechanical shark breakdowns.
What ensues is a claustrophobic piece delving into its subjects’ insecurities. Artistic ego is a dangerous creature. What better way to explore the minefield than in close quarters?
It plays like a modern-day version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, with characters milling about in interstitials. Tom Stoppard’s play was about the men beyond Hamlet’s Danish action. Here, the three actors fill the void between filming and shark maintenance with personal doubts, the cramped space of set designer Devin Finn’s astoundingly accurate boat giving stage to their deepest fears. Under David R. Jarrott’s direction, the characters keep bumping against personal boundaries while they wait. Their time is filled with miscellany: cards, drinking, running lines, drinking, confessions about their relationships with their fathers, drinking, and capping it all off with a lovely bit of drinking. Naturally, it serves as fertile ground for these men to posture and bruise against each other.
Jarrott Productions skillfully plays with layers of artifice in their actors’ portrayal of other actors. The visual casting is astounding. A black turtleneck and aviator frames transform Jim Lindsay into Roy Scheider’s strong, authoritative portrayal of the fictional Chief Brody. Lindsay’s Scheider is wise and kind and maybe a little bit like the guy who tells boring anecdotes at the party, but if there is a hero in this play, it’s him. In between swilling Tab and tanning on the deck, he runs interference between the nebbishy, neurotic Richard Dreyfuss (Will Gibson Douglas) and the biting drunk Robert Shaw (Bob Beare). Douglas captures Dreyfuss’ nasally intonation and nervous energy, conveying the whirlwind of confidence and crushing self-doubt that contributed to Dreyfuss’ mixed-to-negative reputation in later years. But here, as a burgeoning name, he hollowly blusters through his great potential. On the flip side, Beare shows Shaw on the decline, a once noble Shakespearean facing down the barrel of old age and irrelevance, with all the anger that implies. Their interplay is full of admiration and scorn and fascinating needling.
The play itself ebbs and flows through the men’s filming process. Some scenic cuts are awkward, with long unbroken scenes followed by quick series knit together with blackouts. The small parts are often jokey, while the long ones luxuriate in rising tension. It’s an odd rollicking rhythm, a choppy wave against audience attention. But it effectively captures a time and place in film history, throwing out references to Kubrick, William Goldman, even Deliverance. Of course, this comes with winking nods to the future, like Roy Scheider’s assertion that there would never be a Jaws sequel, and even if there was he wouldn’t be in it (there was, and he was).
One of those forward-thinking nods has Robert Shaw asking, “Do you think anybody will remember this in 50 years?” Well, here we are, 50 years on. And yes, Virginia, we do remember Jaws, which redefined horror, launched the summer blockbuster, and whose director changed the cinematic landscape for years to come. The Shark Is Broken offers a new take on the project with an intimate look at the actors behind the scenes. It spotlights the trajectory of each player’s path. Venture on this interminable journey with them.
The Shark Is Broken
Trinity Street Playhouse Through Feb. 23
