Review: The Shark Is Broken by Jarrott Productions
by David Glen Robinson

Comedies about the making and unmaking of famous movies are extremely rare. Other than The Shark is Broken about the making of Steven Spielberg’s 70s blockbuster Jaws, this reviewer can recall only Moonlight and Magnolias by Ron Hutchinson about the desperate writing of the 30s global gamechanger Gone with the Wind.  

 

Comparisons are inevitable, but The Shark is Broken stands up well to Moonlight and Magnolias. Inside jokes are rife, their authenticity assured by co-author Ian Shaw, the son of Robert Shaw, who appeared in the film as shark hunter Quint. Shaw is played by veteran actor Bob Beare. Jim Lindsay is Roy Scheider and Will Gibson Douglas is Richard Dreyfuss.

 

Director David Jarrott guides it all with his characteristic smoothness and a dry just-the-facts-ma’am styling of the funniest material. And that material is almost non-stop: insults, obscene gestures, and foul-mouthery made more striking because it all comes from the avatars of celebrity actors. Ah, yes, extremely satisfying, especially to audiences who braved Austin’s weekend party traffic to attend the theatre.

 

 

As Shaw comments dismissively, “It’s about a fish.” The fourth character is a giant robomechanical shark prop that the crew named Bruce. Steven Spielberg had discovered the body/trunk/fuselage on a studio backlot. Fins, body, and (probably) teeth were cunning sheet metal work. The thing was exceptionally heavy and hardly likely to float. The props guys hadn’t heard yet of fiberglass or maybe didn't much care. The internal mechanisms jerry-rigged to give it a semblance of movement were inadequate, a flaw that delayed the shoot by weeks.

 

In The Shark Is Broken, the thing's a word portrait, not a physical prop. Thank God!

 

Devin Finn's set representing the shark hunter’s boat is worth the price of your ticket. That setting and the comic script spark delighted schadenfreude. The audience roars in amusement at the discomfort of three famous movie-makers becalmed on location off Martha’s Vineyard. I certainly did. Shaw and Dreyfuss apparently despised each other, and their animosity grows worse through the play. Scheider took the beta-male role of peacemaker  and go-between mediating between the two bulls. Shaw, with his extensive stage and screen career, condescended to the others and declared the film would go straight into the movie trash bins (this is Jaws, mind you!). In the play he takes nothing seriously and pursues the running joke of pulling out bottles of whiskey and rum stashed beneath virtually every seat cushion and in every storage space. The liquor keeps him from remembering and delivering his lines, to great comic effect.

 

Dreyfuss is Shaw’s polar opposite. He's insecurities all over, doubting his own talent and his decision to pursue an acting career. Will Gibson Douglas gives us Dreyfuss' self-centered annoyance. Douglas's marvelous portrayal of Dreyfuss’ physical breakdown is a great display of the actor’s range. Kudos!

 

Alcohol is central to the comedy. That theme starts with the shaming of Shaw (his Wikipedia bio notes he was alcoholic for most of his life of 51 years). The initially brash Dreyfuss points at him and declares point-blank, “You’re an alcoholic!” Not alone, it turns out; by the end of the play, all three are drinking heavily and the ship of fools is sinking.

 

Some stage stories are designed with plot surprises that turn on a dime and transform everything. At best, these moments enter the realm of brilliance or detour into magnificence. Each becomes a thing apart. Few scripts totally succeed in such bravura. The Shark is Broken delivers handsomely, not once but twice. 

 

In the first of these turns Shaw looks down at Dreyfuss, who's collapsed, sick, and pathetic on the deck. He merely shrugs. Instead of commenting, Beare recites, exquisitely and in full, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes. It's one of the most powerful and reflective pieces of literature on earth, and Beare delivers it beautifully.

 

The second exalted moment also belongs to Beare. After Shaw has failed repeatedly to learn his lines about the the USS Indianapolis, a heavy cruiser torpedoed and sunk in World War II, he finally, masterfully, succeeds in relating word-for-word the fictional shark hunter Quint’s account of that catastrophe. Having survived the sinking of the Indianapolis, Quint found himself treading water with other crew members, many of whom were devoured by sharks. Only those who vividly remember Jaws will recall the irony of Quint’s death. To this nightmare story Shark adds Shaw’s own mental and emotional struggles as he tells it with significant assistance from alcohol.

 

Check it out. The lark singing hymns at Heaven’s gate will love you for it.

 

The Shark is Broken by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon runs February 6-23, 2025 at Trinity Street Playhouse, downtown Austin.

 

 

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The Shark Is Broken
by Ian Shaw, Joseph Nixon
Jarrott Productions

February 6 - 23, 2025

Thursdays - Sundays

Trinity Street Playhouse, 4th floor, First Austin, 901 Trinity Street