Lasting Impressions by Florence McDermott

A Tale of Two Sharks

Picture this: Three movie stars stuck in a boat, egos rubbing together till they’re raw. Their celebrity status has shriveled in the salt air as they wait for a shark named Bruce to resurface so they can start filming.

Rough seas for the actors, but waves of laughter for the audience as the stars battle bad weather, boredom and breakdowns to film the movie, “Jaws.” The three co-stars of the 50-year old film—Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider—are played by Steven Dillon, Darcy Gibson and Colin Havener in a local production of “The Shark Is Broken,” a play written by Shaw’s son, Ian Shaw, along with Joseph Nixon.

This Bigger Dreams Productions performance at Foothills Performing Arts and Civic Center in Oneonta is based on the Broadway play, which ran a limited engagement in 2023. If you haven’t seen it yet, there will be an encore at Foothills on Wednesday, February 26 and Friday, February 28.

The repartee between the three actors keeps the audience hooked from the opening scene. When Dreyfuss complains about broken-down Bruce and asks why they can’t work with a real shark, his co-stars look at him with incredulity.

Scheider tells Dreyfuss, “You can’t tame a shark! What do you do if he eats someone–bop him on the nose? He doesn’t eat someone, you give him a cookie?”

Dreyfuss responds with pride in his voice: “What do I know about sharks? I’m from Queens.”

When a disembodied voice intones the shark is broken again, the actors groan. Shaw predicts Bruce will never get fixed, but they’ll make the movie anyway—“It’ll be ‘Planet of the Apes’ without the monkeys.”

Dreyfuss declares Bruce’s dented jaw makes it unusable.

“The (expletive) thing looks like Kirk Douglas,” he screeches, referencing the late actor’s dimpled chin.

Most of the time, the mild-mannered Scheider reads the newspaper, works on his tan and steps between his bickering co-stars. In “The Shark Is Broken,” it’s Shaw who plays the predator out to devour Dreyfuss’ ego. Dreyfuss is depicted as a whiny, insecure, naïve adolescent, a perfect target for Shaw’s alcoholic bully.

After Dreyfuss questions why he’s stuck on the boat when he should be signing autographs at Sardi’s, Shaw bristles.

He upbraids Dreyfuss, saying, “Look at you! You have no stage experience, you’re fat, you’re sloppy. You couldn’t even do 10 pushups.”

“Oh yeah!” Dreyfuss responds. “Watch this,” as he drops to the floor, struggles and fails to do the exercise.

The Bigger Dreams actors actually look and sound like the stars in the Spielberg hit. They have the same mannerisms as the trio, and the voices are uncanny. If you close your eyes, you could swear you’re listening to a young Richard Dreyfuss.

This adds to the sense you’re eavesdropping on a dishy squabble between A-list celebs whose personalities are better left under wraps. Demon rum—any kind of alcohol, really—gets Shaw through the long days of boredom.

Continually pecking at Dreyfuss, Shaw’s digs get nastier as he gets drunker. At one point, Dreyfuss has a full-blown panic attack and has to be restrained. Violence erupts when Dreyfuss, sick of Shaw’s digs, ditches the British star’s last bottle of whisky, precipitating a fight. The two tussle on stage until Scheider drags Shaw off Dreyfuss’ prone body, Shaw’s hands clutching the younger man’s throat.

When the trio finally get the go-head to film, the booze-soaked Shaw flubs his speech several times and asks director Steven Spielberg if he can rewrite it, saying, “I can’t do this. It’s duller than my tax returns.”

The director accepts Shaw’s edited piece. The actor then delivers a moving speech in which the character remembers his World War II experience. Sharks encircle him and his fellow sailors as they tread water, waiting for rescue.

When the film’s finally completed, the characters try to predict its fate.

Shaw says he’s sure it’s going to be a hit.

“’Jaws’ a hit? Sure!” he says knowingly.

Dreyfuss wonders if the movie will last beyond its immediate success.

Shaw retorts with a sarcastic sneer, “Do you really think they’re going to be talking about this in 50 years?”

Looks like we still are, Robert.

Florence McDermott is the editor of the Rotary Club of Cooperstown’s newsletter, “The Oil Can,” and an avid theater buff.