Actor/playwright Ian Shaw as his famous father Robert during the filming of Jaws
The Shark Is Broken, Lighthouse, Poole.
Ian Shaw was just five years old when his famous dad, actor Robert Shaw, played the grizzled shark hunter Quint in Steven Spielberg’s film Jaws.For young Ian who accompanied him on the shoot it was a fun family holiday on the beach at Martha’s Vineyard. For Robert and co-stars Roy Scheider who played Police Chief Brody and Richard Dreyfuss who played the oceanographer Matt Hooper, it was a job that was turning into a nightmare.
The movie would become a massive success but no one knew that at the time. Spielberg was a young and inexperienced director and the shoot at sea off the New England coast was beset with problems.
The signature prop – a mechanical shark nicknamed Bruce – kept breaking down while bad weather and unwanted shipping in the sightlines of the cameras kept holding things up. Behind the scenes the budget was running out. Tensions were rising and tempers were frayed with the entire project getting close to being shut down.
Worse still the three main actors were forced to spend long hours at sea aboard a tiny fishing trawler while waiting between takes… and they didn’t get on. Old school actor Shaw had taken particular exception to Dreyfuss who he regarded as an arrogant young upstart and he didn’t hesitate in telling him so.
Margolis plays Dreyfuss as a whiny and occasionally hysterical wannabe movie star who represents everything Shaw despises.The pair clashed constantly with Shaw, a hard drinker with a short fuse, taunting Dreyfuss ceaselessly.
Robert Shaw would die from a heart attack just three years after Jaws was released. Now Ian, also an actor and writer, has used his late father’s diaries to pen The Shark Is Broken (with fellow playwright Joseph Dixon) The result is a frankly brilliant comedy drama revealing the behind-the-scenes tensions during filming.
He also stars in the production which has already enjoyed success in the West End and on Broadway and is this week playing Lighthouse in Poole as part of a UK regional theatre tour to mark the 50th anniversary of Jaws cinematic release.
The play sees Ian taking the role of his dad while Ashley Margolis plays Richard Dreyfuss and Dan Fredenburgh is Roy Scheider. It’s inspired casting. There is no weak link. All three give fine performances although inevitably perhaps it is Ian Shaw who has most of the best lines.
He not only delivers the excellent monologue about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis but also probes Robert Shaw’s increasing dependence on alcohol, his withering dismissal of a celebrity-obsessed film industry, his fundamental sadness that the values he once held dear are becoming a thing of the past and his obvious fear that he is in the grip of the self-destructive gene that led to the death by suicide of his own father at the age of 52.
It’s highly personal stuff but Ian presents it so well that it never seems tasteless or anything less than respectful of his clearly much-loved father.
The clever script makes good use of hindsight to entertain with the actors convinced for instance that there could never be a more corrupt president than Richard Nixon and that no one would remember the film Jaws in 50 years time.
It could all have gone badly wrong but The Shark Is Broken is a triumph. Superbly scripted, well-acted it strikes a balance between wry humour and a warts-and-all study of the idiosyncrasies, human frailties and demons plaguing the unhappy trio.
The production is beautifully set by Duncan Henderson with the audience viewing the three actors cramped together amid the creaking timbers below decks as they booze, argue and play pub games in a bid to pass the time. Meanwhile, video designer Nina Dunn has created a wonderful view of the ocean and changing weather outside, adding yet another element to this remarkable and impressive piece of theatre. Go and see it, you won’t regret it.
*The Shark is Broken plays Lighthouse in Poole until Saturday (3rd May)
Jeremy Miles