Review by Melissa Blease
Some of the most financially successful, critically acclaimed, popular films ever made came out of Hollywood in the 1970s. Edgy, risky, controversial; sexy, silly, thrilling: all bases were covered, no plots were left unexplored, and blockbuster business was booming.
On paper, you wouldn’t have thought that a yarn about the capture of a killer shark terrorising a New England coastal resort would have ended up ranking only just below Star Wars and way higher than Saturday Night Fever, Grease and The Exorcist on the list of the highest-grossing big screen success stories of the entire decade. But in tapping into deep-seated primal fears, creating a beautifully-crafted backstory around relatable characters and setting it all against a menacing soundtrack that introduced audiences to the power of the soundscape, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws kicked disco dynamics, a sappy high school love story and a story about demonic possession to the kerb.
51 years on and The Shark is Broken — originally directed by Guy Masterson, with Martha Geelan taking over for the UK tour — is doing for theatre audiences what the movie did for deep-dive thrill seekers.
If you’ve ever wondered what Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw and Roy Scheider (aka, in the film, young marine biologist Matt Hooper, hard-bitten professional shark hunter Quint and phlegmatic Police Chief Martin Brody respectively) did in the lengthy gaps between takes while their infamous animatronic shark was broken, writers Ian Shaw (Robert Shaw’s son, inspired by one his father’s ‘drinking diaries’) and Joseph Nixon welcome us on board the movie’s shark hunting ship the Orca where the key members of the cast largely hung out, passing the time sharing stories, playing games and drinking.
Could there ever be another president as corrupt as Robert Nixon? What’s next for Hollywood: movies about close encounters with extraterrestrials… or how about a genetic experiment on extinct dinosaurs goes wrong? Ha ha ha! The meta comedy hits the mark, time and again. So too do the trivial conversational pursuits: how to win Shove ha’penny, can the boys ever look at another bowl of chowder again, why do people drink, is sunshine really beneficial to the body?
But when the trio touch on deeper personal issues and reveal snippets of their real, real life story to each other, this stranded ship — Duncan Henderson’s gorgeous reconstructed cross-section of the boat itself, set against Video Designer Nina Dunn’s equally beautiful video backdrop of endless ocean and vast open skies — really sails.
Ashley Margolis is the double of a young Richard Dreyfuss, wearing his youthful swagger as an overcoat that barely conceals his emotional insecurities and mastering all the ticks and twitches that come with such baggage. As Roy Scheider, Dan Fredenburgh — though thoroughly engaging throughout — is the most distant, unknowable of the trio: solid and stolid, practical, pragmatic and professional. Overall, it’s Ian Shaw in the role of his real-life father Robert (a casting decision that adds further depth and complexity to this beautifully-scripted, perfectly-paced drama) who rides the waves of the narrative, nimbly navigating us between carefree moments and choppier emotional waters. When Shaw, as his father, tells his buddies that he hopes to live longer than his own dad who killed himself at the age of 52, there’s palpable pathos: Robert Shaw died of a heart attack in 1978, at the age of 51.
Ambition and regret, failure and success, peaks, troughs and traumas: The Shark is Broken packs the story of three men who spent nine weeks stranded below deck on one of Hollywood’s most iconic ships while waiting for one of Hollywood’s most iconic superstars to turn up for their close-up into 95 minutes of moving, memorable, impactful theatre… no bigger boat required.
The Shark is Broken is at Theatre Royal Bath until Saturday 8 March
