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shaw thing
THESHARKISBROKEN I New play goes between takes on Jaws.
T
he family resemblance is so uncanny that it feels like
destiny for Ian Shaw to play his late father, Robert, in
some capacity. Shaw Jr. even took matters into his own
hands, joining forces with playwright Joseph Nixon to
write a play about what happened when Steven Spielberg’s cameras
stopped rolling on his 1975 blockbuster Jaws.
Shaw referred to a variety
of sources to inform the script,
ranging from screenwriter Carl
Gottlieb’s celebrated memoir
The Jaws Log, to archive interviews
and his father’s drinking diary:
“I didn’t actually put that into
the play, but it informed some
aspects of the drama.”
He also had first-hand
experience of Jaws, having visited
the set as a four-year-old kid. “My
memory is very sketchy,” Shaw
admits, “but I do remember being
kind of sneaked into some sort of
hangar area where one of the crew
lifted a dust cover off Bruce the
Shark’s face. That’s something
you’re not going to forget!” RE
ETA | 11 MAY / THE SHARK IS BROKEN
OPENS AT LONDON’S AMBASSADORS
THEATRE IN MAY.
The Shark Is Broken – a smash
hit on the Edinburgh Fringe in
2019 – focuses on Robert Shaw
(Quint), Roy Scheider (Brody) and
Richard Dreyfuss (Hooper) as
they filmed on the Orca. With bad
weather off the Cape Cod coast, an
unreliable mechanical shark, and
three actors in close confinement,
the shoot is famous for having
been anything but plain sailing...
“It’s a classic situation,” Shaw
tells Teasers. “I think that any
time people are trapped makes
for good drama – especially with
the technical difficulties they
had. Jaws was the first [major
Hollywood] film shot on the open
water, so it was an enormous
learning curve for everyone. Also,
my dad was drinking and the
relationship with Dreyfuss was
not always very rosy.”
The tensions between
Shaw Sr. and Dreyfuss are well
documented, and Ian believes the
actors’ personalities may have fed
into their respective characters.
“I think Steven certainly didn’t
interfere because he thought
what he was getting on film was
terrific!” he says.
EXCLUSIVE
Believeitornot
butthisisn’tastill
fromthefilmJaws
SON
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