Art and entertainment are not mutually exclusive; something can tickle your funny bone and give you great pause for appreciation. And vice versa. It’s what Ian Shaw & Joseph Nixon’s script The Shark is Broken sets out to prove. It’s now appearing— the area community premiere— at Vagabond Players, kicking off the back-half of the 110th season! Directed by Stephen Deininger, this fast-paced, truth-based theatrical engagement gives audiences a deeper look at what really happens when filming for a movie gets stalled in tight quarters.
There’s a cozy little boat buoyed right in the center of the Vagabond Players’ stage. Set Designers & Builders Bruce Kapplin and Jay Demarco are nodding to that iconic line of Brody’s with this one. It gives you a sense of limited space to replicate the conditions under which Shaw, Scheider, and Dreyfuss were coping during filming. Joel Selzer’s lighting design was highlighted during the stormy moment aboard The Orca (as was Sean Digiorgio’s sound design. Digiorgio’s various shanties between scenes and persistent water-lapping sound were also nice touches.) There were two scenes— very specifically the ‘USS Indianapolis’ speech moments— where Selzer’s lighting could have been dimmer or utilized more shadows to really draw home the intensity of those moments, but otherwise the lighting felt efficient.
Costumes across the board bore the iconic looks of Brody, Quint, and Hooper…and by extension the similarities to Scheider, Shaw, and Dreyfuss (carefully cultivated into place by Costume Designer Travis Barber and even more so in the cases of Shaw and Dreyfuss by Wigmaster Penelope Chan.) When a show captures real life icons and actors, the audience expects a certain level of exacting visual matches (and has a tolerance for which they will forgive) and fortunately for Barber and Chan, they really capture the essence of this trio of actor-characters.
While nobody can question the fact that director Stephen Deininger brings this show in at a hot, tight 90 minutes, there are moments where that intense pacing feels rushed, as if the beats and breaths written into certain scenes aren’t being allowed to rest and breathe. This is particularly true of the final scene (which is an iconic and readily recognizable scene from the film and although this is a live stage show, anyone who’s seen the movie or who can hear the timing in the text despite its rapid delivery can feel the lack of pause.) It adds an uneasy sense of haste to scenes (like that final one) and doesn’t allow for some of the heavier depths to hit, which has the dual-effect of keeping the play a bit lighter and fluffier than Ian Shaw & Joseph Nixon intended while also making some of the comedy feel forced or ‘put-upon’.
There are quite a few moments of text— mainly with the Robert Shaw character— that feel like they ought to be heavier but they get somewhat glossed over in exchange for the levity that couches the whole of the script. This is most notable in the scene where the trio are discussing their respective fathers (and when Shaw discusses his drinking) and Shaw’s text cries out for both pause and contemplation but gets glazed through with glibness. And not even in a ‘that’s too dark I’m going to make a joke out of it’ kind of way but rather in a ‘let’s not take this comedy and let it become too deep and too dark’ vein. This feels like a mild disservice to the script, not properly plumbing the depths of the severity (particularly for Shaw), which would make the comedy that much funnier when it lands, having something deep and heavy to go up against it.
Deininger’s other directorial diversion, as misstep seems too harsh a word, is in jet-launching Andy Belt’s Dreyfuss from jump-street at an eleven. Belt does an extraordinary job of keeping up the frenetic, incessant energy, fully portraying that uneasy, tweaked out, spastic caricature type. But it starts at its elevated peak and has nowhere to climb to, nor does it ever really come down— making for a really intense, albeit semi-static layer of characterization. Even when the Dreyfuss character ends up melting down under the table he’s high-strung. The breathing and pauses (again, coming back to that burning, exacting tight-pacing) are missing from these moments where they’re written into his character.
There’s also the matter of the Robert Shaw character’s accent. Generally speaking, in community theatre, accents of all varieties get lots of passes (there often isn’t a dialect coach available, the actors involved are not trained professionals with lessons, etc.) This production of The Shark is Broken does include a Dialect Coach (Ben Strigle) and while the subtle pops of the New England sound on the Roy Scheider character are blended quite seamlessly into the line deliveries made by that actor, this isn’t the case for Doug Krehbel’s Robert Shaw. When he’s voice-acting as Quint, Krehbel sounds almost exactly like Quint from the film. But his accent as Shaw is inconsistent and a little all over the place. The stronger choice here might have been to forego the English-accent entirely (an audience can and will suspend their disbelief on that) for a stellar, focused, and exactingly delivered emotional and comedically charged performance, over one that gets hung up in line-delivery because of the accent.
Deininger plays up the triangle of archetypes in the dynamic between Robert Shaw (Doug Krehbel), Richard Dreyfuss (Andy Belt) and Roy Scheider (Matthew Lindsay Payne.) You have the over-the-top-can’t settle down agitation of Belt’s Dreyfuss constantly bucking heads with the boorish, ill-tempered nature of Krehbel’s Shaw, while Payne’s Scheider plays the fly on the wall, just sitting back and amusing himself by absorbing their antics through osmosis until he inevitably gets dragged into the thick of it. The trio— Belt, Payne, and Krehbel— take turns playing off one another, creating an intriguing dynamic aboard The Orca as Dreyfuss, Scheider, and Shaw, respectively.
There’s a lot of physicality being exercised in this production, with Andy Belt as the physically-presentational ringleader with his Dreyfuss delivering an indefatigable state of perpetual fidgety motion. Belt does a ton of frantic pacing, done to almost dizzying proportions as most of it happens in the tiny space at the front of The Orca right near the stage’s edge. He even shares some that dizzying energy with Payne, who takes it up during his ‘sunbathing scene’ and spins himself nearly silly trying to ignore the calls on the radio. And Krehbel, in his moments of pure rage-infused ire and later when his character is blotto, fills up every breath of air on the stage with his physicality— falling off the boat bench and tumbling upright and then later when he seizes the Dreyfuss character by the throat. All are intricately crafted moments that captivate the audience’s attention fully.
The trio also really lands the punchy and plucky laugh lines all throughout the show. The script is chock-a-block with humors, both big and small (hell, they’re gonna need a bigger boat for some of those laughs!) and Belt, Payne, and Krehbel have a firm handle on the chuckles in this production. Payne has a few standout moments where his character gets to dip into that depth of seriousness— particularly when he paints a visual with his words about watching a documentary the night before and that’s why he couldn’t sleep, and when he delivers his ‘my father was an auto-mechanic’ speech. That sobering stillness is a beautiful component that Payne adds to this performance, which creates a balance amid the comedic chaos that’s otherwise rocking the boat. Payne also has a mastery over the way he delivers all of Scheider’s ‘fun facts’, making both his cohorts and the audience groan almost at ‘pun-level’ every time he spouts one off.
Belt’s Dreyfuss and Krehbel’s Shaw constantly being at blows with one another— and the varying degrees of smugness in both Krehbel’s voice and facial expressions— generate prime moments of humor that moor the play between two types of comedy. Belt’s character earns the most laughs when he’s ‘rehearsing’ lines alone on the boat, each successive delivery growing with comedic intensity and landing soundly with the audience. While it’s some of the exasperated deadpan on Krehbel’s Shaw that gets him the most laughs.
It’s a play about a film about a shark. And it’s a great opportunity to laugh and chuckle and enjoy the antics of misfortune; after all if the mechanical fishy had just worked…if Bruce hadn’t been broken…well, where would the fun in that be? The audience laughed constantly all throughout the performance; it’s got great comedic merit! Get yourself a bigger boat…or at least a ticket…to see The Shark Is Broken at Vagabond Players through the first of February this year!
Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission
The Shark is Broken plays through February 1st 2026 at Vagabond Players— located in the heart of Fells Point: 806 S. Broadway in Baltimore, MD. Tickets can be purchased by calling the box office at (410) 563-9135 in advance online.
