‘The Shark Is Broken’ review: ‘Jaws’ riff gets swallowed by Broadway

“The Shark Is Damaged,” a brand new Broadway comedy concerning the behind-the-scenes squabbles throughout the making of “Jaws,” continuously asks whether or not Steven Spielberg’s seminal blockbuster is artwork or leisure.

Historical past has decided that it’s each — a monster film, sure, however one overflowing with cinematic innovation and panache that amounted to a well-deserved Finest Image Oscar nomination and enduring worldwide fame. 

However Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon’s wishy-washy play, which opened Thursday on the Golden Theatre, struggles to be both because it depicts actors Robert Shaw (Ian Shaw), Roy Scheider (Colin Donnell) and Richard Dreyfuss (Alex Brightman) going at one another’s throats off-camera. 

They battle, battle once more after which battle some extra.

The idea is a enjoyable one, to make certain. We drop in on the 1974 manufacturing of “Jaws” because it’s already $2 million over finances, and the trio of hot-tempered actors have day after day of downtime on set in Martha’s Winery as a result of the animatronic shark (nicknamed Bruce) retains malfunctioning. 

All of that actually occurred — and prompted “Jaws” to take a grueling 5 months to movie.

So, the fed-up actors drink, learn aloud the newspaper, play previous British pub video games, puke and brawl aboard the Orca to move the time.

The impact of their macho antics, nonetheless, is far the identical as listening to your drunken pals argue about capitalism at 2 a.m. They carry on yapping and usually are not getting wherever, so that you zone out.

Massive-personality confrontations about who the actual star of the film is — and who’s the higher actor — are neither rip-roaring nor very insightful. They begin out amusingly petty, and rapidly develop repetitive.

The draw, although, is Ian Shaw. He’s the son of Robert Shaw — the Shakespearean actor who performed gruff shark hunter Quint and who died in 1978. Ian performs his dad within the present he co-wrote. 

So, not coincidentally, he’s the most effective a part of the play directed by Man Masterson.

Ian is the spitting picture of his father and he’s handed himself the funniest strains, partially as a result of Robert was additionally an achieved author. How classical actors wound up in initiatives like “Jaws” within the pre-Marvel Nineteen Seventies — one other was Sir Alec Guinness in “Star Wars” — is fascinating.

But satisfying although he’s, no one right here is fleshed-out sufficient. Roy, Robert and Richard are, sketch-like, outlined by a single character trait. Robert is the grizzled veteran, Roy is nerdy and Richard is a bright-eyed doofus. If any change happens, it’s that by the tip they tolerate one another a bit extra.

At occasions Shaw and Nixon’s dialogue sparks with wit, and at others we get groaner after groaner.

The play is extraordinarily conscious — too conscious! — of the legacy of “Jaws” and of future occasions to come back, and endlessly references them. The shark is damaged, however the winks are in overdrive.

“UFOs? Aliens,” says Shaw after studying about Spielberg’s upcoming venture, “Shut Encounters of the Third Type.” “What’s subsequent? Dinosaurs?!” 

One other one goes: “No person shall be speaking about this film in 50 years!” 

A headline about Richard Nixon’s resignation is used to make a simple Trump joke.

These many thudding strains, to reference Quint’s dramatic entrance in “Jaws,” are like nails on a chalkboard.

Regardless, the three performers have robust chemistry, and handle to rise above mere impressions — even whereas doing spot-on impersonations of the movie’s stars.

They inhabit Duncan Henderson’s practical, cross-section Orca set that lovingly evokes the film in entrance of Nina Dunn’s projections of the Atlantic Ocean.

Nonetheless, on Broadway, the little play will get swallowed up like a doomed teen in Amity.

“Shark” was a giant hit on the Edinburgh Fringe Pageant in 2019, and I’m certain it’s a present that might profit from that type of scrappiness and intimacy.

Typically you want a smaller boat.