Broadway’s ‘The Shark is Broken’ nips but fails to bite
The Shark is Broken invites theatergoers behind the scenes of Jaws, Steven Spielberg’s famously overbudget and highly successful 1975 film, and the complex relationship among its three lead actors, Roy Scheider (Colin Donnell), Richard Dreyfuss (Alex Brightman), and Robert Shaw (Ian Shaw, Robert’s real-life son).Set aboard the fictional Orca, a 1940s lobster boat on which the last half of the film was shot off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, the actors playing actors playing characters offer an insider’s look at the film and the technological and emotional challenges faced during the nearly five-month shoot.Adapted from the 1985 film starring Michael J.
Fox and Christopher Lloyd, ‘Back to the Future’ hopes to attract nostalgic Broadway audiences.For those who suffer from sea sickness, consider taking Dramamine before arriving at the Golden Theatre, where scenic designer Duncan Henderson’s faithful replica of the Orca bobs in the Atlantic, thanks to Nina Dunn’s video design, which is projected onto a wrap-around cyclorama.While the sea and the circumstances provide plenty of drama, Nixon and Shaw’s script fails to dig much beyond intel widely available through previously produced documentaries, including Inside Jaws and The Shark is Still Working.
Instead, the playwrights focus their energies on the bigger-than-life personalities of the film’s stars.As a 27-year-old Richard Dreyfuss on the brink of success, Brightman aptly exudes the now familiar ticks, mannerisms, and ego of a star on the rise (several years later, Dreyfuss would win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in The Goodbye Girl).
