Theater Review | ETC’s ‘The Shark Is Broken’ Leaps Into ‘Jaws’ and Lands Just Right

What was originally meant to be a seven-week shoot on Martha’s Vineyard has stretched to more than 17 weeks, and it’s starting to feel endless. Rumors swirl about the film being $2 million over budget, the script keeps changing, shooting stops every time a boat drifts into frame, and “Bruce,” the mechanical shark, is malfunctioning … again. 

Ensemble Theatre Company’s (ETC) production of The Shark Is Broken is a smart, tightly wound, and unexpectedly tender meditation on fame, frustration, and the bizarre alchemy that turns chaos into cultural legend. 

Set aboard a floating barge during the famously troubled filming of Jaws, the play imagines the downtime between takes shared by actors Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, and Roy Scheider as they wait — and wait — for the shark to cooperate. What unfolds is a character study of three men trapped by weather, ego, ambition, alcohol, and the creeping fear that their moment might be slipping away.

With creative scenic design by Fred Kinney, projection design by Elijah Frankle, and direction by Pesha Rudnick, ETC brings the cramped 1974 film set to life with a scaled recreation of the Orca, the fishing boat from Jaws. Projections span the full length of the stage to demonstrate the vastness of the sea, while the claustrophobic atmosphere aboard the 43-foot-long modified lobster boat effectively amplifies the tension building between the three actors as they pace, drink, bicker, and kill time while waiting to film.

The true strength of this production lies in its performances, as each actor captures not only the public persona of their real-life counterpart, but the vulnerabilities underneath. Shaw’s Shakespearean bravado — portrayed brilliantly by Gildart Jackson — masks deep insecurity and self-destruction. Will Block’s jittery Dreyfuss crackles with nervous energy and youthful arrogance that sits comfortably in Block’s comedic wheelhouse, while Adam Poole’s Schieder radiates a weary middle-child steadiness that often makes him the emotional anchor of the play. Their chemistry is palpable, and the dialogue — sharp, funny, and occasionally brutal — lands with precision.

The Shark Is Broken grapples with questions still relevant and all too familiar to artists today: What drives you to keep creating? What does success cost? How do artists measure their worth? And what happens when the work you’re making might eclipse you entirely? ETC leans into these themes without overstatement, allowing the humor to disarm the audience before the quieter moments of emotional honesty slip in. The script — written by Joseph Nixon and Ian Shaw (real-life son of Robert Shaw himself) — contains plenty of self-referential winks acknowledging the legacy of Jaws, Steven Spielberg, and other current events, but if the audience tired of them, they certainly didn’t show it. Ensemble Theatre Company delivers a production that is funny, melancholy, and deeply human — less about a blockbuster film and more about the fragile people who made it, unaware they are about to be swallowed by history.

See The Shark Is Broken at the New Vic (33 W. Victoria St.) through February 22. See etcsb.org.