Brighton Year-Round 2025
The Shark is Broken
Sonia Friedman Productions, Scott Landis, GFour Productions, Kenny Wax
Genre: Adaptation, Comedy, Drama, Historical, Mainstream Theatre, Short Plays, Theatre, True-life
Venue: Theatre Royal Brighton
Festival: Brighton Year-Round
Low Down
The 2019 Edinburgh Festival hit The Shark is Broken directed by Martha Geelan (original director Guy Masterson) arrives at Theatre Royal Brighton till April 12th.
Essential theatre for anyone who enjoys new plays with more wit than several comedies. A must-see.
Review
Playing your father is one way of killing them. That’s before the shark might. But Ian Shaw, invoking his father Robert, and co-writer Joseph Nixon are more intent on immortalising the three stars of Jaws. And Bruce. That’s the malfunctioning shark whose refusal to work turned Jaws into a masterpiece. Shaw and Nixon send the shark-hunt up whilst revealing huge respect for its artistry, idiocy and vision. The 2019 Edinburgh Festival hit The Shark is Broken directed by Martha Geelan (original director Guy Masterson) arrives at Theatre Royal Brighton till April 12th.
“It’s going to need a bigger theatre” reviewers said in 2019. Thwarted by covid it finally opened in 2021 to Oliver award nominations, hit Broadway, and now tours to many large theatres. It’s certainly the finest play to grace Theatre Royal since Birdsong arrived two months ago. Based to a degree on Robert Shaw’s diaries, Ian and Nixon have fleshed these out. Nixon’s known (with the late Brian Mitchell) for Those Magnificent Men and Underdogs: his mix of genuine reverence and farce gloves tight over Robert’s sardonic but deeply serious persona. He’s a perfect collaborator.
Ian Shaw, deeply versed in his father’s style (and inheriting his writing gene) reprises his role as Robert, hurtling across 95 minutes hunting the snark of rival up-thrusting Richard Dreyfuss (Ashley Margolis) whist Dan Fredenburgh’s Roy Scheider tries to keep them apart. It’s funny till it’s profound. Then funny.
There’s interminable waits till either the shark’s fixed or Spielberg has an epiphany. Over three parts and starting with the eighth and latterly tenth week, we see how telling stories, scrapping over games and telling stories, both exhausts and curiously bonds the trio as they take chunks out of each other. One poignant scene nodding to Ian Shaw, has each actor talk of their fathers.
Margolis as new-brat-on-the-block Dreyfuss has some of the best lines and delivers them with a manic neurosis that’s magnetic and physically uproarious. Despite recent success (the Canadian The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz) he’s in awe of his fellow-actors, terrified and disillusioned, all in one. Of that shark. “It’s got a dent in the jaw so it looks like Kirk Douglas.” “Sea? I’m from Queen’s…. Nothing good ever happened to any Jews on the water.” “Jesus walked on the water.” “And look what happened to him.” Then there’s W.C. Fields’ joke about water. But that’s unrepeatable outside the theatre. Oh and “The shark is broken” is Dreyfuss’ line. It’s why we’re Waiting for Bruce. And none of the actors is miced up. Their diction falls crystalline to the back of the theatre.
Shaw roars his father’s mix of alcohol-aggrandised disappointment with shrewdness: Robert wants to get back to playwriting; judging by his Cato Street (1972) they’re fine plays. He even got the Hawthornden Prize for his second novel in 1962. Beyond this, Robert has sound instinct that Jaws will be a blockbuster: he tried to waive his salary for a share of profits, and was turned down. A sure sign. Nevertheless he predicts it’ll be amongst a run of 1970s box-office hits that will be forgotten. One or two will be, but Love Story, The Exorcist?
There’s a lot of hindsight jokes later on where they predict wrongly; or Shaw scoffs at this alien thing Dreyfuss will make next with Spielberg. Shaw too gets some pratfall lines along with the film prophesies: “There will never be a more immoral president than Nixon!” The man’s abominable, Shaw adds. Yet he pities him. More than Dreyfuss, as drink-arguments (and arguments about drink) refuel. Yarit Dor’s fight direction is fun to flinch at too: there’s some explosive scenes.
Fredenburgh’s Roy Scheider is both respected by Shaw, where the idolising Dreyfus isn’t, and sane when the rival egos of the two stars clash. Fredenburgh brings out the laconic slightly weary second-lead, always playing excellent supporting roles. But he’s deeply humane, and doesn’t object to Shaw’s patronising placement of him as Kent or Gloucester to Shaw’s imaginary Lear. Dreyfuss of course is the Fool.
Yet it’s Shakespeare who shows up Shaw’s surprise side. As Dreyfuss hyperventilates the rumbustious Shaw quietly sits with him and recites Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29: “When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,” invoking a magical stillness. Some laughed, but stopped.
And when they discuss what the film’s about, are Dreyfuss or Scheider wrong in their probing, when Shaw bluffly declares: “It’s about a shark.”
It’s a classy production. Designed (including costume) by dramatist/actor/designer Duncan Henderson (like Nixon, well-known in original Brighton shows) the cutaway boat is startlingly faithful to the original, focused on the cabin below. Nearly all action takes place here and detail is quietly mesmerising. Rare forays to the wheelhouse above or deck only heighten the fact that nothing happens except in the table-clad cabin.
Lit atmospherically by Jon Clark with sound design (including voices off) and original music by Adam Cork (known from his original brass and theatre music) extending the Williams, there’s another outstanding ingredient. Nina Dunn’s video of a shifting seascape and sunrises beyond is exquisite, piercing through the boat as the horizon ever changes, clouds scud and dawn breaks again. Clark’s lighting synchs with this in some of the most beautiful backlighting I can remember.
Throughout, Shaw struggles with the USS Indianapolis speech: Shaw finds Carl Gottlieb’s piece unperformable so gets Spielberg’s permission to rewrite. His drinking and scrapping with Dreyfuss corpses each scene rehearsal. Will he ever make the cut?
This is essential theatre for anyone who enjoys new plays with more wit than several comedies. A must-see.
Owen Oldroyd and Aam Clifford perform as extras.
Casting Director Ellie Collyer-Bristow CDG, Gair, Wigs & Makeup Carole Hancock, Associate Director Molly Stacey, Costume Associate Deborah Andres, Associate Sound Designer James Melling, Production Manager Tom Nickson.
Company manager Sue Volans, Technical stage Manager Geoffrey Field, DSM Jess Cooper, Tech Swing Km Shepherd, Sound No 1 Angus-Xiangfei Wu, Head of Wardrobe Matthew Hulme.
