How The Shark Is Broken extends the Broadway legacy of JAWS actor Robert Shaw
You can catch The Shark Is Broken from 25th July 2023 at the Golden Theater, New York, NYC.
The Shark Is Broken, the comedy about the behind-the-scenes events that went on during the making of JAWS, marks the Broadway debut of Ian Shaw, the son of Quint actor Robert Shaw.
Shaw snr was no stranger to the bright lights of New York’s world-famous theatre district with him having trod the boards of Broadway on five separate occasions.
A renowned writer and playwright, one of the plays he wrote also made it to Broadway, something again emulated with Ian Shaw’s Broadway journey, as The Shark Is Broken is co-written by him and Joseph Nixon.
We light the lights and raise the curtain on the Broadway appearances of Robert Shaw.
He made his Broadway debut in 1961, appearing in the production of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker, which ran for 165 performances. The production opened on Broadway on October 4, 1961, until February 24, 1962, at the Lyceum Theater, with Howard Taubman’s original review in the New York Times calling Shaw’s performance “enormously touching”.
He starred alongside Donald Pleasence and Alan Bates, the three starring in the film version which was released in 1963, the same year he would almost kill James Bond (Sean Connery) in From Russia With Love.
Shaw returned to Broadway in 1964 in a production of The Physicists directed by Peter Brook, it running for only 55 performances from October 13, 1964, to November 28, 1964 at the Martin Beck Theatre, New York.
In 1967 Shaw wrote perhaps his most famous book, The Man in the Glass Booth (1967). The play – released the same year – was a big success in London, it inevitably transferring to Broadway in 1968, where it ran for 264 performances, from September 26, 1968, until May 17, 1969, at the Royale Theatre, New York, the same year that Ian Shaw was born.
Shaw was not in the play himself, but this stage adaptation of his own work saw him gain his most significant attention and praise for his writing skills…skills he would later use to help forge and hone the USS Indianapolis speech from JAWS which we so know and love.
It’s entirely fitting then that this Robert Shaw adaptation of THAT speech makes it to the finale of The Shark Is Broken, it expertly and uncannily delivered by his son Ian Shaw as Robert Shaw, dressed as Quint. The words of Robert Shaw (and others) ringing out across Broadway almost 50 years since he last set foot on it.
In 1970, Robert Shaw returned to Broadway playing the title role in Gantry, a musical adaptation of Elmer Gantry, unfortunately the production ran for just one single performance at the George Abbott Theatre in New York, that single performance not finding the love on February 14, 1970.
Undeterred, he followed this with Old Times in 1971 at the Billy Rose Theatre, from November 16, 1971, until February 26, 1972, for 120 performances. This production saw Shaw return to the work of Harold Pinter, only this time it was co-starring his wife – and Ian Shaw’s mum – Mary Ure.
Robert Shaw and made his final appearance on Broadway, in a production of Dance of Death, running for a total of 37 performances from April 4, 1974, until May 5, 1974, at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, New York.
That was the same year that JAWS went into production and the very same year that The Shark Is Broken is set in. In fact, it ended its run just three days after JAWS began its very first day of principal photography, the rest – as they say – is history.
Words by Dean Newman
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