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    ‘The Shark Is Broken’ Review: A Bloodless Postscript to ‘Jaws’

    Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the theater, a play about the making of Hollywood’s first summer blockbuster bobs up on Broadway.For nine weeks in 1974, off the shore of Martha’s Vineyard, the shooting of “Jaws” was repeatedly delayed by the whims of its temperamental stars. And by “stars,” I mean Bruce.Bruce was the name given to the three mechanical predators built to simulate the great white shark at the heart of the story. As one after another became bloated with saltwater or entangled in seaweed and failed to operate or flat-out sank — the crew called the movie “Flaws” — there was little the three equally temperamental human stars could do but try (and usually fail) to be patient. Occasionally they wondered if it might not have been better to train an actual great white for the role.After seeing “The Shark Is Broken,” a play about that disastrous shoot, you may wonder the opposite: whether it might not have been better to cast the movie with mechanical humans. The real ones were nearly as glitchy as Bruce. Aboard the Orca, the lobster boat on which much of “Jaws” was filmed, the actors Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider bickered, brawled, vomited, kvetched, drank, backstabbed and, like Bruce, broke down.All of that is faithfully rendered in “The Shark Is Broken,” which opened on Thursday at the Golden Theater, in a production directed by Guy Masterson. There’s a perfect replica of the Orca bobbing prettily on a C.G.I. sea, and costumes minutely matched to the film. (Duncan Henderson is the designer.) Accents, postures, props and hairstyles are fanatically accurate; there’s even a hat-tip (by Adam Cork) to John Williams’s sawing, rasping theme at the start.But these details do not on their own create much dramatic interest. Plots consisting of hurry-up-and-wait rarely do. Were it not for its curious meta-story, the play would be little more than a pleasant diversion: 95 minutes of bloodless, toothless, Hollywood-adjacent dramedy.The meta-story gives it a bit more bite. Robert Shaw, who played the Ahab-like shark hunter Quint in “Jaws,” is played here by Ian Shaw, who is one of his sons. Ian, who could be his father’s twin, is also, with Joseph Nixon, the play’s author. The ancient theme of paterfamilias versus prodigal is obviously engaged, also organizing the arcs of the characters. Like a dorsal fin poking over the waves, their filial conflicts suggest the story’s dark undertow.Unfortunately, the undertow remains mostly under in Masterson’s leisurely, self-satisfied staging; you could ask for more urgency even in a play about filling time. But this is quite clearly a love letter, if a complicated one, to a parent who achieved greater success in the same field as his son. (A noted stage actor who crossed back and forth to film, Robert won an Oscar for “A Man for All Seasons.”)So even though we see him drink himself into a stupor, ruthlessly bully Dreyfuss (Alex Brightman) to “improve his performance,” and browbeat Scheider (Colin Donnell) about his sunbathing and spirituality, Ian has him winking with gruff charm to take the edge off the awfulness. He also makes sure to show us, in two set pieces, how fine an actor his father was and thus, in an Oedipal somersault, how fine he is, too.Accents, postures, props and hairstyles are fanatically faithful to the movie, our critic writes, and the set is even a replica of the Orca, the lobster boat on which much of “Jaws” was filmed.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesOne of those set pieces — the “U.S.S. Indianapolis” monologue from the movie, in which Quint reveals the origin of his shark hatred — can at least be justified by the story. We watch Robert rehearse it and flub it until, in the play’s last beat, he nails it. But the barely motivated inclusion of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 (“When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”) comes off as overkill, even though gorgeously spoken; it’s as if “The Shark Is Broken” were a brief for Robert’s admission to actors’ heaven, with Gielgud at the gate.The sonnet’s supposed purpose is to calm Dreyfuss, who is having a panic attack, but Dreyfuss, playing the marine biologist Hooper in the movie, is a full-time panic attack anyway. Brightman’s wicked impersonation, complete with Dreyfusian giggles, shrugs and glasses-pokes, highlights the boundless neurosis of a character who says, “Nothing good ever happened to any Jew on the water.” When he admits he took the role in “Jaws” only because he was sure, at 26, his career was over, it sounds like he means his life was.That he and Scheider (as the police chief Brody) are given daddy issues helps bind their stories thematically to that of both Shaws. Robert’s father, we learn, was an alcoholic who died by suicide; Ian’s of course was Robert, enough said.Still, Dreyfuss’s guilt over not becoming a lawyer and Scheider’s mild recollections of his father’s beatings feel underwhelming. In the competition for messed-up-ness, they lose every heat handily to Robert, and recede in his wake — especially Scheider, who has little to do but placate the others. His best scene, which the silky Donnell carries off perfectly, finds him stripping to his Speedo to catch some rays; there are no lines.That’s telling, because the dialogue overall is labored. Through much of the longish first scene, the authors stuff résumé excerpts and scraps of back story into envelopes of supposedly casual dialogue. (“I shot this thing last year,” Dreyfuss says, “‘The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.’”) Casting about for laughs, they use whatever chum they can, whether it’s borrowed W.C. Fields or cheesy backfilled irony. “There will never be a more immoral president than Tricky Dicky,” Scheider says of Richard Nixon, welcoming the audience’s look-how-that-turned-out response.In the end, “The Shark Is Broken” isn’t interested in argument and interpretation any more than “Jaws” was. When Dreyfuss says the movie they’re making is about the subconscious, and Scheider posits that it’s about responsibility, Shaw, as always, wins by proclamation. “It’s about a shark!” he brays.So is the play, in a way, and that’s why it remains diverting enough for a summer on Broadway. Its sharks are human, though. They’re called sons.The Shark Is BrokenThrough Nov. 19 at the Golden Theater, Manhattan; thesharkisbroken.com. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. More

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    Wrestling With His Past. And an Animatronic Shark.

    In a rehearsal space near Times Square, Ian Shaw was talking about the strange and solemn task of portraying his own father in a Broadway play that he had co-written.“You spend most of your life running away from the father,” he explained. “Now here I was, running into the jaws of the thing.” He paused, realizing what he’d said. “No pun intended,” he added.Ian Shaw’s father is Robert Shaw, the celebrated British actor, author and Oscar-nominated star of “A Man For All Seasons,” who went on to play steely villains in “The Sting” and “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” before his death in 1978.Perhaps his best-known film role is Quint, the seasoned shark hunter of the 1975 blockbuster “Jaws,” whose hardened face hints at a lifetime of harrowing experiences and who delivers a memorable monologue about a shark attack he survived during World War II.Ian Shaw, when clean-shaven, could almost pass unnoticed; he has a gentle manner and friendly eyes. But on this day in early July, with his grown-out mustache and sideburns, Shaw, 53, was a dead ringer for his father in “Jaws.” This is a deliberate choice for his play, “The Shark Is Broken,” which opens Aug. 10 at the Golden Theater.From left, Shaw, Alex Brightman and Colin Donnell in rehearsal for “The Shark Is Broken.” All of the play’s action takes place inside a cramped recreation of the boat from the film.Evelyn Freja for The New York TimesFrom left, Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss in the film “Jaws.”PhotofestThe one-act comedy-drama, written with Joseph Nixon, casts Shaw as his father in a fictional depiction of a particularly challenging day during the making of “Jaws” in 1974.Confined to a small fishing boat called the Orca while the crew contends with an uncooperative mechanical shark, the elder Shaw wrestles with his misgivings about the film, his history of alcoholism and the waning patience of his co-stars Richard Dreyfuss (Alex Brightman) and Roy Scheider (Colin Donnell).Ian Shaw has worked steadily in theater, TV and film projects while striving not to trade on the renown of his illustrious father. Describing his own career, he said, “It’s modest, but to be at my age and have lived my whole life being an actor is a kind of a triumph.”Now, after several years of work on the play and a lifetime of reckoning with his father’s legacy, he said he was ready for a project that addressed his lineage head-on.“You still have to have the conversation about your validity in comparison to your father,” he said. “As I’ve gotten older and more mature, I feel less burdened about that. The final piece of the puzzle to getting rid of the baggage has, peculiarly, been to walk in his shoes.”Ian Shaw is one of Robert Shaw’s 10 children, and the youngest child he had with his second wife, the actress Mary Ure.Robert Shaw was a celebrated man of letters, a friend of Harold Pinter (whose play “Old Times” he starred in with Ure) and an accomplished playwright himself. He also made no secret of his heavy drinking, in an era when such habits were fundamental to the machismo of a generation of actors.Speaking to a reporter who asked him how he kept himself motivated on “Jaws” during long production delays, Robert Shaw responded with a smile: “Well, Scotch, vodka, gin, whatever,” he said.He was also openly resentful of the film roles that earned him a global fan base (and a lucrative living) but took him away from the stage.In an interview on “The Dick Cavett Show” in 1971, Shaw said it was no better to be a busy actor than to be out of work: “It’s always paradoxically bad, either way. When you’re working it’s terrible because you’re usually doing rubbish, and when you’re not working it’s worse.”Ian Shaw poses for a portrait on the tugboat W.O. Decker, at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York.Evelyn Freja for The New York TimesDespite the rugged reputation that his father cultivated onscreen and off, Ian Shaw said of him, “Privately he was very affectionate and very funny and sort of naughty.”As he recalled, “One time, a quite dignified guest came to stay with us in Ireland, and he was greeted by the sight of Robert opening the door in his wife’s nightie. He thought that sort of thing was tremendously funny.”Even so, “there’s a lot of who he was on the screen,” Shaw said. “You wouldn’t want to confront him directly in an argument.”The actor described boisterous family dinners held at long tables where he would sometimes be clamoring for his father’s attention. “I would be dominating a little bit,” he said. “And he would come over, pick me up and just put me outside the room.”But the family was struck by tragedies. Ure died from an accidental overdose of alcohol and barbiturates in 1975, and Shaw died of a heart attack three years later.Ian Shaw, who is now married with two children of his own, was just 8 years old at the time. But, he said, “I felt I had time with him. Up to that point, I didn’t feel shortchanged.”Guy Masterson, the director of “The Shark Is Broken” and a longtime friend, said Shaw’s family history has presented professional challenges.When they would kick around ideas for possible collaborations, “Ian came to me and said he didn’t want to do anything with his dad, because he looked like him,” said Masterson, who has known the actor for some 25 years. “Every time he walked into an audition, people would expect Robert Shaw, and he was at a disadvantage.”At first, the younger Shaw balked at the notion of a biographical play about his father. “I felt like it would be an impossible thing to pull off,” he said.But over time, and with the encouragement from friends and colleagues like Masterson, he grew more comfortable. As the project germinated, Shaw also noticed the theater becoming more receptive to productions with cinematic origins, such as the plays “The 39 Steps” (adapted from the Hitchcock film) or any number of musicals based on contemporary hit movies.“The Shark Is Broken” dramatizes some of the real-life conflict between the seasoned Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss.Universal Pictures, via Getty ImagesFor research, Shaw read books like “The Jaws Log” by Carl Gottlieb, one of the film’s screenwriters, which chronicled the production’s numerous problems. He also looked at interviews his father gave in this era, trying to channel his unapologetic, forthright voice.“In a world where those types of interviews weren’t stage-managed, Robert would sometimes say things that were quite shocking,” Ian Shaw said. “It didn’t feel like he was trying to get his next job. He was just trying to speak from the heart.”He also reviewed a drinking diary that his father kept in the early 1970s, and which one of his sisters later shared with him. “It gave me a baseline about how he felt about his alcoholism,” Ian Shaw said. “He had tried to quit and couldn’t do it. He wanted to concentrate on his writing and it was interfering with that.”Before the play arrived on Broadway, “The Shark Is Broken” had a brief tryout in Brighton, England, in 2019, and ran later that summer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It also played at the Ambassadors Theater in London’s West End during the 2021-22 season.In the Times Square studio, the play’s whole set fit into a small portion of the room: a cramped recreation of a bench and table inside the Orca. Shaw said he could imagine himself touring the play around in a van, “taking it to every village hall in England and making some money doing that.”The sense of claustrophobia is intended to amplify some of the well-documented conflict that took place behind the scenes of “Jaws,” like the on-set friction between Shaw and Dreyfuss: In the show, as in real life, the seasoned Shaw regards Dreyfuss as inexperienced and entitled, while Dreyfuss worries that Shaw’s drinking has gotten out of control.Within the boat’s confines, fictionalized conversations and monologues show the characters humorously squabbling and wondering if their cinematic efforts will amount to anything. They also explore the characters’ depths, as when Robert Shaw reflects on his own father, who was himself an alcoholic and died by suicide when Shaw was a child.Donnell, a star of television (“Chicago Med”) and musical theater (“Violet”), said he felt a strong obligation to help Shaw realize his goals for the play.“There’s almost a sense of duty to fulfill his vision, and to try to breathe as much life as we can into these roles,” he said.“You’re getting to witness somebody taking a deep dive on some difficult memories,” Donnell said. “I would imagine there is a bit of catharsis in not only having created the piece but getting to embody his father every night. I’m sure there is some dueling going on in his brain.”“It’s modest, but to be at my age and have lived my whole life being an actor is a kind of a triumph,” Shaw, a father of two, said of his career.Evelyn Freja for The New York TimesBrightman, who recently played the title character in the Broadway musical “Beetlejuice,” said that Shaw’s involvement gave the play permission to be candid in its depiction of the “Jaws” stars.“Shows like this can be watered down and glorify a person for who they weren’t,” he said. “This play actually goes the other way and shows the three of them without a soft focus at all. I really think that we see three very flawed egomaniacs.”But the emotional draw, Brightman said, is the space it gives Shaw to connect with his father in real time.“I don’t know how many people would ever get an opportunity like this, to both honor his dad and show him with the capital-F flaws of a person,” he said.When he prepares to play his father in “The Shark Is Broken,” Shaw said his rituals include practicing his voice as he puts on his Quint costume. “I believe him to be quite fearless, so when I’m getting into character that’s one of the feelings that I absorb,” he said. “I’m very front-foot and energized, which is quite a liberating feeling.”But that is a sensation that only lasts about as long as the performance. When it’s over, Shaw said, “I do tend to quite quickly revert to who I am, which is probably a healthy thing. I’m not my father. I’m a different man.” More

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    Alex Brightman Lays ‘Beetlejuice’ to Rest

    A concussion nearly derailed the actor’s fan-favorite turn as the madcap, black-and-white striped ghoul. But he recovered in time for the closing show.As Alex Brightman disappeared through the doorway to the Netherworld one last time at the Marquis Theater on Sunday night, his black-and-white-striped Beetlejuice suit enveloped by a cloud of smoke, he uttered a few special parting words:“Goooodbye, Broadway!”And he meant it.“I’m very aware that it really could be the last time I am on Broadway,” said Brightman, 35, who for parts of the past four years has played the ghostly guide to the other side in “Beetlejuice,” the Broadway musical based on the 1988 Tim Burton film about a face-off between a goth girl and a devious demon. “So it’s a humbling experience to be up there and to be able to share and be vulnerable.”After his first entrance of the final show, Brightman was met with a two-minute standing ovation.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesHis farewell wasn’t quite the one he had anticipated. At a Christmas Eve performance, Brightman slammed into the show’s giant sandworm backstage at a full sprint — when a door hadn’t opened, Brightman tried an ill-fated alternate route — leaving him with a concussion.“I didn’t realize what had happened,” he said. “I figured I just banged my head.”Symptoms abruptly surfaced two days later, and after spending the next week nauseous, achy and painfully sensitive to light, he thought he’d played his final performance — maybe ever. (Three of the show’s standby and understudy Beetlejuices, Andrew Kober, Elliott Mattox and Will Blum, filled in while Brightman was out.)“I thought I wasn’t going to recover,” said Brightman, who was funny and lively in the eighth-floor cocktail lounge at the Marriott Marquis hotel before getting into costume for Sunday evening’s performance. “It felt like one long 10- or 11-day sickness in one day.”But things improved about a week ago, he said, and after doing a four-hour rehearsal on Thursday, he got the all-clear to return for the show’s final three evening performances.The 1,602 audience members at the sold-out performance on Sunday night, many of whom sported black-and-white striped suits and green wigs, showered Brightman with appreciation. (Everyone in attendance received a special Playbill with a silver sticker on the cover that read “It’s the Final Showtime.”) It started with his first entrance, when he received two minutes of applause and a standing ovation.Brightman received a Tony Award nomination in 2019 for his performance as Beetlejuice.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York Times“I’ve never had that happen before,” said Brightman, who has been in six Broadway shows, earning Tony Award nominations for his role in “Beetlejuice” and as Dewey Finn in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical adaptation of “School of Rock.”Though “Beetlejuice” opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theater in April 2019 to mixed reviews (the New York Times critic Ben Brantley called it “absolutely exhausting”), it became a fan favorite — dozens of them would turn up as Lydia, the Maitlands and, of course, Beetlejuice to compete in the musical’s preshow costume contests. Still, the show was handed a closing notice in December of that year when what the Shubert Organization saw as a potentially lucrative production of “The Music Man” needed its real estate. Then the pandemic happened, and the production shuttered in March 2020.The surging sales before the closure led producers to reopen the show last year at the Marquis Theater in April. But attendance dipped again over the summer, and producers announced in October that the show would close in January after 679 performances. (A national touring production began in December, and there are also coming international versions in Brazil and Japan.)To protect his vocal cords, Brightman creates Beetlejuice’s signature gruff voice using a technique called ventricular fold phonation, in which he vibrates the cartilage in his throat.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesBrightman and Elizabeth Teeter, who plays Lydia, paid tribute to the show’s fans, known as “Netherlings,” on Sunday night, holding up signs at the curtain call that read “Hey guys” and “Love you guys!”“This is a show about death that’s actually really a celebration of life,” the show’s director, Alex Timbers, said from the stage after a purple-and-green confetti storm. “And you all have given us life.”Before the show and directly afterward in his dressing room — sweaty and smiling in a white V-neck stained with green and red blotches as his team helped him remove his makeup for the final time — Brightman reflected on parting ways with the ghost with the most, the show’s fervent fan following and what’s next for him (other than, of course, sleeping).These are edited excerpts from the conversation.“This is a show about death that’s actually really a celebration of life,” said Alex Timbers, the show’s director, addressing the house on closing night. “And you all have given us life.”Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesYou first read the part in 2017. How are you feeling after tonight’s performance?Exhausted. It was very cathartic. I’m thrilled I got to close it after six years.Do you have any lingering effects from the concussion?I still have headaches, but they’re not pounding. I take Aleve. And my doctor said I will probably be prone to more headaches throughout the rest of my life because of it, but nothing too crazy.How important was it to you to make it back for the closing night?I’m not necessarily one of those people that believes in making that miraculous appearance at that last performance because he has to. I value my health, and I want to do more things after this. So running the risk of passing out onstage or reinjuring myself if I wasn’t ready was not in the cards.What has it been like starring in a show with such a devoted fan base?It never, ever gets old. The “Beetlejuice” fans are the warmest fans that I’ve ever encountered in the six Broadway shows I’ve done. It’s a lot of me in there, so for 1,500 people to accept my character in the show and my style of absurdity and comedy and improv is extremely cathartic and emotional.What is it like to spend so long with the same character?The last thing I want to do is be bored with anything I do, and anything this long has that danger, but this part allows me to discover new things not every night, but every minute. I have the ability to be a bit topical, a bit loose — it doesn’t feel like I’m on a track. That’s made it easy to do for six years.The show developed a devoted fan base who call themselves “Netherlings.” They frequently attended shows dressed as “Beetlejuice” characters.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesWhat’s a moment that’s different in every show?There’s a part in the opening number where I have a stand mic and do a Frank Sinatra impression for a “Tip Your Waitress” kind of thing. And in it, there’s space for me to say a couple of things if I want to. The other night, I just screamed “The Kardashians!” and it got a laugh for no reason. And then right after I said, “I can’t keep up with them.” “Gangnam Style!” has also been a popular one.What did your first attempts at the Beetlejuice voice sound like?At my first audition, I was like, “I don’t know how to do a Michael Keaton impression, so let me just try something.” And it went fine, but I paid for it for two days — my voice was on fire.How do you do it now for eight shows a week without damaging your vocal cords?It’s called ventricular fold phonation, and it means you vibrate the cartilage in your throat alongside your vocal cords. I was able to figure out through trial and error that it’s the same muscles I use to clear my throat. I could do this interview better — and more healthfully —[switches to Beetlejuice voice] in this voice than just talking to you with [reverts to normal voice] this voice, because right now I’m using my vocal cords, and vocal cords get tired. Cartilage doesn’t get tired — there’s no nerves, it’s not a muscle.“This part allows me to discover new things not every night, but every minute,” Brightman said.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesWhat’s next for you?I sold a cartoon series to Warner Bros., “Cleaners,” which is a raunchy, slightly musical comedy about a crew from Boston that does biohazard cleanups — crime scenes, meth labs, hoarders. And I wrote a play called “Everything Is Fine,” about the one-year aftermath of a mall shooting from the perspective of the family of the perpetrator, who is no longer with us. Cynthia Nixon directed a number of the readings, and we’re hoping to continue getting that somewhere in New York. And I’m working on a musical with Universal Theatrical with my writing partner, which is an adaptation of the film “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” about a kid who checks himself into a psychiatric ward.So, a lot of writing.I’ve been onstage for 15 years now, kind of consistently, and I’m a little Broadway-ed and musical-ed out, which I know is a very privileged thing to say. But what comes with doing this is scrutiny. People look at you and judge you every night. I want to do my own thing for a second — to just let my work speak for itself and not have to defend it with a musical number.Would you ever want to return to “Beetlejuice”?What I know is that I have the right of first refusal for a London production, were it to happen. There are no designs for it to happen just yet that I know of, but I would consider it.“I’ve been onstage for 15 years now, kind of consistently,” Brightman said. “I want to do my own thing for a second.”Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesLet’s do a quick round of confirm or deny.Ooh, yes!You have done the voice in a public setting that is not the theater.Confirm. A few months ago, I went into Starbucks and said [in his Beetlejuice voice] “Can I just have one grande Pike Place with a little bit of half and half and just one Splenda?” They said, “What’s your name?” And I said [in Beetlejuice voice], “B.J.” And then they said, “Coffee for B.J.?” And I said [in Beetlejuice voice], “Thanks so much.” And I left. It’s New York. I was the least weird thing to walk into that Starbucks that day.You get nervous when you know someone famous will be at the show.Deny. The only person who would make me nervous would be Mel Brooks, because I revere him to a point that is probably pretty unhealthy.If you had to choose between marrying Beetlejuice or having to wear a single pair of used workout clothes for the rest of your life, you would —Marry Beetlejuice, if only for the fact that I know how much I sweat. More