Jersey Arts Podcast · ArtPride New Jersey

'The Shark is Broken' Brings Hollywood Foibles to the Stage at George Street Playhouse

·27 min·1 clip

One actor watched Jaws six times before auditioning, then says the film works as suspense, not horror.

1. Jersey Arts Podcast episode on The Shark is Broken follows George Street Playhouse's stage version of the making of Jaws. 2. Gina Marie Rodriguez hosts, and guests Jeff Bender, Max Walkowitz, and Ace Mavinsky play Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, and Roy Scheider. 3. The episode asks what a rehearsal-room conversation can reveal about Jaws, Hollywood ego, and a 50th-anniversary stage production. 4. Rodriguez opens by calling Jaws the top-grossing film of 1975 and framing it as the first true summer blockbuster. 5. She describes the play's setting in 1974 on a delayed ocean shoot with foul weather and a faulty mechanical shark. 6. The production is based on Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon's script, and Ian Shaw is Robert Shaw's son. 7. Bender says he was already a huge Jaws fan, bought the Blu-ray, and thinks the movie still holds up. 8. Walkowitz says he had seen Jaws for the first time only recently and watched it through the lens of the stage project. 9. Mavinsky argues that Jaws works as a suspense film or thriller because Spielberg delays the shark. 10. The cast ties that delay to the broken mechanical shark, which forced the film to create suspense by showing less. 11. Rodriguez mentions The Shark Is Still Working documentary and a producer's view of Jaws as an indie disguised as a big Hollywood picture. 12. Bender says he read Jaws in the 1990s, reread it for this project, and still wanted the role after auditioning for the Broadway production. 13. Walkowitz says his script line about not reading the book let him avoid Peter Benchley's novel as part of his process. 14. Bender details his work on Robert Shaw by studying interviews, dialect, mannerisms, and the Nantucket dock interview with reporters. 15. Walkowitz says he used The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, voice work, and Dreyfuss's Queens-to-Beverly-Hills speech pattern as research. 16. Bender says the research is easier now because films and interviews are available on YouTube and other platforms. 17. The actors say their favorite scenes involve a game the characters play while waiting for the shark to be fixed. 18. They also praise the prop master, the designer team, and director Peter Flynn for detailed work and kind leadership. 19. Listeners who enjoy Jaws trivia, theater craft, and backstage movie stories will get the most from this conversation. 20. Listeners looking for a spoiler-free plot synopsis alone may skip it.

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