“...details do not on their own create much dramatic interest. Plots consisting of hurry-up-and-wait rarely do. Were it not for its curious meta-story, the play would be little more than a pleasant diversion: 95 minutes of bloodless, toothless, Hollywood-adjacent dramedy.”
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“For a play that draws much of its appeal from nostalgia, ’The Shark Is Broken’ mostly avoids documentary-style exposition about the making of Jaws...In any case, the play has the good sense to end with Shaw’s performance of that very speech—which the actor also had a hand in writing—in its entirety. Intense and lean, it handily outmatches the preceding scenes of uneasy boatmates bobbing in the drink.”
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“ ‘The Shark Is Broken’ is all talk, and a pattern emerges. Shaw and Dreyfuss clash. Scheider referees. It gets repetitive over the 95-minute run time. On the plus side, there are moments when the warring trio clicks and a sort of camaraderie shines through. Plus, the co-authors seasoned the script with laughs.”
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“Fathers end up being ‘The Shark Is Broken’s’ primary way into its whole central trio...The scene in the latter half of the one act where the three of them start to open up about their fathers hits at something emotionally where the rest of the play tends to be too stuffed with trivia...It’s where the actors’ performances cool off from nervous, meticulous imitation into a truer dynamic.”
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“ ‘The Shark Is Broken’ is not a play for the ages, or even for those who have never seen ‘Jaws,’ but it’s a frisky and continuously amusing diversion—perfect late-summer entertainment if you want to stay away from the ocean.”
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“Beyond its good will and nostalgic conjuring, ’The Shark Is Broken’ is too slender a tale, too gentle, to provide thrills or even, truth be told, much drama.”
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“In the end, there’s not a lot here: No crazy shark puppets, little sense of the raging seas nor of tormented, insecure actors — not much for the eye to see and very little happening that you don’t anticipate just five or 10 minutes into the show.”
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“This might have been a fascinating portrait of male ego and insecurity, with real insights into the workings of Hollywood in the 1970s...But written by the son of the late Robert Shaw, the piece feels like artless autobiography or maybe even a son’s revenge.”
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