‘The Shark Is Broken’ Broadway Review: Gentle Comedy Snatches Life From Jaws Of Movie History
deadline.comThere’s at least one shark that’s not showing up in New York City these days: Bruce, the famous mechanical predator of Steven Spielberg’s sea horror classic Jaws, is the Godot-like presence in the Ian Shaw-Joseph Nixon comedy The Shark Is Broken, an amiable, slight new behind-the-movie-scenes play opening a 16-week engagement on Broadway tonight.
Set on the floating junk heap of a fishing vessel instantly familiar from 1975 movie, The Shark Is Broken features three fine, uncannily on-point performances from Alex Brightman (as a hilariously neurotic and “snow”-snorting Richard Dreyfus), co-playwright Shaw (a dead-ringer, both in looks and mannerism, for his late father Robert Shaw, who played sharkhunter Quint in the film) and Colin Donnell (as the peacemaking Roy Scheider).
Directed by Gus Masterson on a terrifically effective single set by Duncan Henderson (who also designed the period-perfect costumes) and with lighting and video designs (Jon Clark, Nina Dunn, respectively) so vivid you can almost smell the salt air, The Shark Is Broken moves more efficiently than ol’ Bruce ever did, but unlike the cinematic Great White, the play provides few surprises.
The 1974 filming off Martha’s Vineyard is one of Hollywood’s legendary troubled shoot tales, with a yet-to-prove-himself young director, a worried studio, a brazen on-location plan and three actors who spent their considerable waiting-for-Bruce-to-function downtime drinking (Shaw), snorting (Dreyfus), bickering (Shaw and Dreyfus) and coming quietly unglued (Scheider).
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