Theatrical adaptations of popular movies populate American theaters to an often-nauseating extent. Often transmogrified into musicals, producers mount them in the belief there’s a built-in audience guaranteed to show up and buy tickets en masse. 

While successful Bay Area runs of such shows as Mrs. Doubtfire and Back to the Future might be proving their point, suffice it to say most shows of this type will never make into a listing of great American theatrical triumphs.  

A very tiny subset of that genre would be plays based on the making of a movie. Jonathan Reynolds’ Geniuses, about the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and Ron Hutchinson’s Moonlight and Magnolias, about the writing of the script for Gone with the Wind would be prime examples. 

Add to that tiny list The Shark is Broken by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon. Left Edge Theatre has a production of the comedy running at The California is Santa Rosa through April 11.  

Shaw, the son of actor Robert Shaw, takes the circumstances of his father’s most famous role, that of shark hunter Quint in Steve Spielberg’s Jaws, and creates a what-might-have-happened story between the three stars of the film that’s played mostly for laughs.  

Roy Scheider (Nathan Luft-Runner), Richard Dreyfuss (Dylan James Pereira), and Robert Shaw (Matt Cadigan) spend endless hours on a boat when their mechanical shark nemesis is inoperative. The hard-drinking Shaw and the brash, young Dreyfuss frequently go at it, leaving it to the level-headed Scheider to keep the peace.

Pereira gives the strongest performance of the three. He nails Dreyfuss’s jittery, often manic energy and neurotic personality and provides a lot of the show’s laughs. Cadigan does alright by Shaw, but there’s something missing from his characterization. It doesn’t help that the play ends with a recreation of Shaw’s chilling delivery of the story of the U.S.S. Indianapolis. It’s always a challenge playing a known figure, but this was a particularly hard act to follow/recreate. 

Luft-Runner certainly has a physical resemblance to Scheider, but he frequently tripped over his tongue. Perhaps he’ll inhabit the character more as he becomes more confident with his lines.

The single set, small cast requirements of the show worked to first-time director Dana Hunt’s advantage. Hunt, a fixture in the local improv comedy scene, knows how to wring laughs from material.  

There’s nothing profound in The Shark is Broken though it tries on the subject of fatherhood. With plenty of amusing bits and lots of “inside” references for movie buffs, it’s lightweight entertainment for fans of the film and general cinephiles.

If you’ve seen the film (and who hasn’t?), you’ll get it.  

Left Edge Theatre’s ‘The Shark is Broken’ runs through April 11 at The California Theatre. 528 7^th Street, Santa Rosa. Wed – Fri, 7:30pm; Sat., 1pm. $22–$44. 707.664.7529. leftedgetheatre.com

Photos by Dana Hunt

This review originally appeared in an edited version in the North Bay Bohemian.