“The Shark Is Broken” should have gone belly up like a dead halibut.
The script of this play, which ran through Sept. 14 at Springs Ensemble Theatre (SET) inside Old Colorado City’s Fifty-Niner game shop, tells the behind-the-scenes dramedy involved in the making of “Jaws.”
You know, the first major summer blockbuster that happens to be 50 years old.
The folks at SET knew that, especially with the tie-in to the 50th anniversary re-release of “Jaws,” there would be some interest here. What they didn’t expect was that the entire run of the play would sell out before it even premiered. That’s never happened in the company’s 16-year history.
Sounds like fun until you realize it’s essentially a play without a plot – just three actors in a boat kvetching about the cold, the food, the defective motorized fish, and one-another.
The story has no question to drive it. You know, like in love stories where you’re wondering if the couple will ever get back together or the Stephen King thrillers where you wonder if Mr. Man will ever escape his greatest fan.
Here, the only question to answer is whether the shark will ever be fixed so that the off-stage voice of Stephen Spielberg can tell the actors it’s time to shoot the next scene.
Not exactly the nail-biter that was “Jaws.”
But if you appreciate character development and magnificent acting for their own sakes, and I certainly do, “The Shark Is Broken” will sink its teeth in you.
I’d been anticipating this show since I heard it would star Steve Emily and Matt Radcliffe, who had played together in “Steady Rain,” one of the earliest and most powerful dramas SET has ever produced.
Emily, with the help of ace dialect coach Beth Clements, trades his Chicago accent for a New England lilt to portray actor Robert Shaw so thoroughly I could forget Steve was inside there. He lets us see right into the guts of this brilliant raw wound of a man, a would-be Ahab, who turned a shallow thriller into something poetic and important.
Radcliffe has both the easier and the more challenging role in portraying Roy Scheider. Easier because Scheider, who played Chief Brody, lacks the extreme temperament of Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss, and more challenging for the same reason. His Roy could have been deadly dull. But he leans into the everyman likeability of Scheider to give the audience a necessary voice of sanity amid the insanity of the others.
But the most amazing feat of this production is that amid these veteran actors at the top of their game, relative newcomer Colin Gregory stole the show. His Richard Dreyfus – the nasally voice and the quirky mannerisms – are so spot-on that at first it feels like he’s doing an impression.
As the scenes go by, it grows into much more, letting us feel the fish-out-of-water struggles of an actor who can’t quite find his feet. This glimpse into Dreyfus’ psyche has its annoying moments, but it ultimately makes me like Dreyfus more, and makes me eager to see what Gregory will do next.
Veteran director Tim Muldrew makes up for the play’s lack of edge-of-your-seat thrills by giving the actors space. For instance, when Emily gets to deliver that iconic Shaw monologue about his grim experience with sharks, the play seems to take a breath.
And the rest of us hold ours.
For more information on future SET productions, go to SpringsEnsembleTheatre.org.
Warren Epstein is chair of the board at the Pikes Peak Bulletin and is not paid to write here.
