By Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon
The Drama
Robert Shaw, playing Quint (Anthony Gooley), is strapped into the fighting chair, his hands frantically manipulating the rod and wheel.
Roy Scheider, playing Chief Brody (Tom Stokes), leans over the port gunwales, scoops some seawater into a pan and pours the water over the spinning reel to cool it down.
Meanwhile, Richard Dreyfuss, playing Matt Hooper (Robin Goldsworthy) glances over his shoulder as he drives the small fishing vessel named Orca.
The scene is simmering with action and anxiety; heaving with tension and testosterone. It’s man against beast. Knights of the ocean jousting with Jaws.
But then comes the metallic voice over the intercom: “Cut…the shark isn’t working.”
The three actors immediately break character, glance at each other, roll their eyes and relax. It’s going to be another long day on the ocean. Will that darn mechanical shark ever work? And what will these three leading men talk about as they wait for the next scene to be filmed?
Photo Credit – David Hooley
Sublime Acting
The ensemble cast were simply magnificent. Stokes inhabited the cool masculinity of Roy Scheider. Gooley portrayed all of Robert Shaw’s drunken, inner demons. And Goldsworthy, remarkably, became the neurotic, snivelling Richard Dreyfuss, right down to every involuntary snigger and nervous tick.
This was a trio of actors operating at the highest level. Modulating their tone and pitch, reacting to whatever the other actors had just said or done. They became the characters they were playing, whilst never once stooping to caricature.
Photo Credit – David Hooley
What My Eyebrows Told Me
The Shark is Broken enjoys a clever premise.
The fact that the mechanical shark in Jaws rarely worked is part of Hollywood folklore. It ended up being a happy accident because it forced Spielberg to make a movie whether the villain was represented by music and rarely seen, which only served to ratchet up the tension.
But how did Dreyfuss, Scheider and Shaw pass the endless hours between takes?
Well, if Robert Shaw’s son – playwright Ian Shaw – is to be believed, Dreyfuss and Shaw spent most of their time bickering whilst Scheider did his best to maintain the peace. What follows is a wonderful piece of artistic licence where the underlying fears, dreams and motivations of the three men are laid bare.
Their frequently funny, and often dramatic, exchanges forced my eyebrows into a Supreme Arch.
And, as I stood to applaud them as they took their bows, my overriding sense was that this sterling production deserved a larger theatre and a bigger audience.
Photo Credit – David Hooley
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