By Michael Buzzelli
Actors Roy Schieder (Patrick Cannon), Robert Shaw (Patrick Jordan), and Richard Dreyfuss (Quinn Patrick Shannon) spend their days in holding on a boat, in a behind-the-screams look at “Jaws” in Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon’s “The Shark is Broken.”
Side note: Technically there are three sharks named Bruce, which is perfect because this show has three actors named Patrick.
Tensions between the actors are high because the mechanical parts of the robotic shark, nicknamed Bruce, keep breaking down in the ocean water, delaying the production.
After popping up in one-off roles in TV shows from “Bewitched” to “Gunsmoke,” Dreyfuss gets his first film in “American Graffiti,” but he’s looking at “Jaws” to catapult him to the next level. He considers him the star of the production.
Shaw, who wants to spend most of his time at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey, despises Dreyfuss. He sees Dreyfuss as a neurotic, vainglorious idiot and refers to him as “Boy,” despite Dreyfuss’s protestations.
Scheider, who spends most of his time trying to find some peace between takes, becomes the referee they need to keep them from killing one another.
When the playwright Shaw, son of Robert Shaw, read his father’s diaries, he contacted Nixon to help him draft a script, using the extraordinary difficulties on the set as the perfect backdrop to tell an amusing and engaging story about his father and the film. Clearly, Shaw and Nixon embellished, but they made a perfect mechanical fish story.
“The Shark is Broken” is a jet-black comedy that proves to be a marvelous showcase for Shannon, Cannon and Jordan (sounds like a rhymy law firm).
Shannon inhabits Richard Dreyfuss body and soul. He looks and sounds like Dreyfuss. It’s hard to remember that he isn’t. He is triumphant in the role.
Squint and you’ll see Quint, Jordan’s deliciously dark, brooding take on Robert Shaw.
Cannon plays Scheider with panache. He is the measured peacekeeper who pops out an array of facts, trivia and minutiae to enliven their spirits on the boat. He gets a terrific moment of rage where he thinks he’s found nirvana only to be immediately interrupted.
Tony Ferrieri’s set is another masterwork by the master scenic designer. It’s a literal cutaway of the boat, but instead of just slicing off a portion so the audience can see the interior, the cutouts are chomp marks made from a very, very big shark.
The production never feels claustrophobic on the tiny boat, because Director Steve (Stevo) Parys has a steady and on the helm.
Shout-out to voice coach Don Wadsworth, who was able to help the actors slip seamlessly into their roles by sounding exactly like the men they’re playing.
It’s hard to imagine that a play about three actors bitching about the trials and tribulations on set could be engaging, it’s actually enthralling. “The Shark is Broken,” much like Bruce the mechanical shark, is greater than the sum of its parts.
-MB
“The Shark is Broken” is on the Bingo O’Malley stage, inside barebones theater, 1211 Braddock Avenue, Braddock, PA 15104. More shows are being added to this sold-out show, look for more information here.
