THE SHARK IS BROKEN

Photo: Manuel Harlan

If like me you can remember heading to the local cinema, back then no doubt a big screen picture house and not one of those movie in a cupboard venues that we have these days days, you will probably remember the excitement that surrounded the release of Steven Spielberg’s action thriller Jaws. Spielberg was only 26 at the time but as a relative unknown we cared little about him, this was the movie of the moment.

Action thrillers were the fashion back then and the scarier and more spectacular they could make them was the order of the day. Spielberg had cast two well known stars and a relative unknown at that time, Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss. Things were not going well on set, Bruce the enormous mechanical shark kept breaking down and the three central cast members were forced to sit it out on a shark fishing boat out at sea in New England as Spielberg had chosen not to film in a studio tank.

At the time Shaw’s son Ian would visit the set and witnessed the making of one of the greatest films of its kind. But he would also witness the chaotic frustration of the cast as time dragged on. He would later find a diary of the events and from it, working with co-writer Joseph Nixon, well known in Brighton as a theatre maker, they have crafted a three hander that has garnered praise from it’s early incarnation here in Brighton via the Edinburgh Fringe, the West End, Toronto and then Broadway.

And the praise is so so well earned. This is the stuff of real theatre, and performed on this UK tour by three remarkable actors.

Ian Shaw takes on the role of his father in a frank and raw representation of the man, the rum swilling, arrogant, accomplished but deeply flawed actor who saw the whole enterprise as way beneath his stature as an Actor with a capital A. From the moment he steps onto Orco and into the claustrophobic confines of that cabin he is totally believable in the part.

Dan Fredenburgh play Scheider, the Hollywood pro, comfortable with his place as a movie star, not bound up with artistic aspirations or disappointments with his career. It is a scarily real representation of the man and were it not for a remarkable performance one might be convinced that he had been cast because he could look so like the tanned and jet black haired star. But it is a wonderful performance and one that adds balance to the whole, the gentle contrast to Shaw’s ranting and drunken anger.

Into the mix we have Richard Dreyfuss, at this point only 26 and a couple of movies made, in the teen cult hit American Graffiti and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. Dreyfuss is ambitious but riddled with the conflicting issues of arrogance and a lack of self confidence. He is in awe of his two co-stars but disappointed in them both at the same time. Ashley Margolis is wonderfully adept at capturing both and at the same revealing a boyish innocence and charm that is simultaneously enjoying the glamour of becoming a Hollywood star, booze, drugs and women…

Photo: Manuel Harlan Photo: Manuel Harlan

The scene is set, it’s the last few days of the shoot and things are going wrong, Spielberg is a faint voice off stage and the three actors, played by actors, are left in isolation. That’s all you need to be told, except of course that this is theatre of the highest order. Whilst exploring the story of the making of the film it also probes the art of acting, the danger of success, the nature of films and the fragility of human nature whilst dealing with all this.

A beautiful set by Duncan Henderson and video backdrop by Nina Dunn perfectly frames the whole and for the tour Martha Geelan brings the whole together with a deft hand, gentle reserve for the most part allowing the explosions of anger and frustration to shine.

But most amazingly I left the theatre not only having seen a finely crafted production of a beautifully scripted play, performed by three excellent players, but also feeling that by the end I was not watching actors but watching the real Shaw, Scheider and Dreyfuss. Quite an achievement.

Andrew Kay

7 April

Theatre Royal Brighton

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