The Shark Is Broken at NC Stage Co.

The cast of The Shark Is Broken at NC Stage Co. pulls off a remarkable feat: Once the play gets underway, it’s easy to lose yourself in the illusion that you’re watching the three stars of Steven Spielberg’s hit movie Jaws the way they were when the blockbuster was being filmed in 1974. Set entirely on a small, anchored fishing boat that was used as the Orca in the movie, the play imagines conversations among actors Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, and Richard Dreyfuss during the many breaks in the filming caused by the malfunction of Bruce, the production’s mechanical shark.

Written by Shaw’s son Ian, an actor and playwright, along with Joseph Nixon (a British comedy writer), the play chiefly contrasts the brooding, boozing, theater-trained Shaw (played by Richard Neil), then 46 or 47, and the ambitious, anxious, star wannabe Dreyfuss (Ben Mackel), then 26 — with Roy Scheider (Adam Poole), then 41, often acting as peacemaker.

Ian Shaw, who was four years old during the filming of Jaws and just eight when his father died suddenly in 1978, played Robert Shaw to much acclaim when the play opened in the U.K. in 2019, but Neil steps into Shaw’s no-nonsense shoes with confidence and the same stage presence Robert Shaw must have had (when he wasn’t drunk). Mackel is an equally convincing Dreyfuss, with all the nervous energy, bravado, and self-doubt the actor had in the 1970s, along with a quiver full of familiar gestures.

The cast and director, Charlie Flynn-McIver, clearly did their homework in capturing these movie stars’ familiar personas and mannerisms. That includes Poole, whose Scheider is the calm buffer on the boat. You can practically feel him suppressing his own emotions in order to appear neutral. A scene where Scheider thinks he can finally relax, alone, and catch some rays reveals as much of his character as any of the dialogue.

The play itself, a series of loosely shaped scenes of varying lengths, provides some biographical info on its subjects, but the only monologues of any heft come from Neil’s Shaw, quoting Shakespeare or the Jaws screenplay. There are many laughs — the audience reacts most jovially to the characters’ errant predictions of the “future” — some moments of intimate revelation (Dreyfuss’s attack of nerves; Shaw’s search for a missing liquor bottle), and one physical confrontation, but much of the dialogue can be best described as utilitarian, saying just enough to keep moving forward. A round of the bar game “shove ha’penny” is among the more creative and entertaining scenes establishing the trio’s particular character traits.

Other than a bit of insight on the broken shark and a couple references to the New England locals, the playwrights make little attempt to share the kind of behind-the-scenes stories that enliven National Geographic’s Jaws @ 50 documentary. “Steven” is mentioned now and again, for instance — and a voice that’s presumably Spielberg’s is heard from off-stage — but we don’t learn what the stars might think of the director.

No other crew or cast members are discussed much at all. Rather, this Orca — an impressively detailed set by Julie K. Ross — is a kind of purgatory in which these three spirited performers are repeatedly trapped and disconnected from all else, able to learn only from one another. A coda to the play’s intermission-less 85-minute run time suggests that the days these actors spent together were artistically fruitful, but you still might leave the theater with more questions than you arrived with — as well as a desire to watch Jaws one more time.

The Shark Is Broken runs through October 12. For tickets and more information, visit ncstage.org.

Photos courtesy of NC Stage Co.

Ben Mackel as Richard Dreyfuss in The Shark Is Broken at NC Stage Co.