BRUCE, new musical about the making of Steven Spielberg's JAWS

[MichelleCraig]

Posted: 3/21/22 at 2:24pm

Fixed link:

https://deadline.com/2022/03/jaws-musical-bruce-jarrod-spector-seattle-rep-theater-1234983246/#recipient_hashed=598ef19ae68f0d25fc9ef5f6b388ff107e8577493db5f392d0c6145bd4b2cd2d

Updated On: 3/21/22 at 02:24 PM

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 3/21/22 at 2:52pm

Please make links clickable.  Common courtesy here.

https://www.seattlerep.org/plays/202122-season/bruce/
 

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 3/21/22 at 3:49pm

The Shark is Broken play has just completed its London run, is this new musical even necessary? 

[JSquared2]

Posted: 3/21/22 at 3:54pm

songanddanceman2 said: "The Shark is Broken play has just completed its London run, is this new musical even necessary?"

Is any new musical ever "necessary"?

 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 3/21/22 at 4:20pm

Seems an odd thing to musicalize, which intrigues me. 

[inception]

Posted: 3/21/22 at 7:05pm

Interesting that it is being directed by Donna Feore, who usually does a lot of work at the Stratford Festival. Perhaps this is a co-production?

[TheGingerBreadMan]

Posted: 3/21/22 at 7:22pm

I listened to some demo recordings of this that were posted on YouTube a while back and really enjoyed it. 

[BoringBoredBoard40]

Posted: 3/21/22 at 7:26pm

The Shark is Broken is going to beat this to New York 

[uncageg]

Posted: 3/22/22 at 12:02am

Found this on You Tube. AN interview with the creatives and a portion of what seems to be the final song in the show..

 

https://youtu.be/F5IqWkE6WYs

[TaffyDavenport]

Posted: 3/22/22 at 12:11am

There were a bunch of full songs/demos earlier this evening on Richard Oberacker's YouTube account, but they've all been deleted.

[inception]

Posted: 3/22/22 at 9:33am

There is a week in June while this is on in which the tours for both The Prom & Pretty Woman are also playing Seattle.  Might make for a cool little mini theatre trip for someone on the West Coast.

[theblackumbrella]

Posted: 6/6/22 at 2:50pm

Bumping this thread to see if any folks have checked it out. I've only seen some rumblings on Twitter that are fairly positive. It's exciting that Seattle Rep is continuing to cultivate new works after the recent success of Come From Away, Here Lies Love, and All The Way.

https://www.seattlerep.org/plays/202122-season/bruce/

[BookandLyricsby]

Posted: 6/6/22 at 10:57pm

Seattle local, first time posting, some minor spoilers.  

I was very excited to finally see this at Saturday’s matinee, been looking forward to for a while. Overall, Bruce is an entertaining show, if predictable and relatively slight. The behind-the-scenes drama behind the making of Jaws might seem inherently dramatic but the stakes just aren’t ever really there. Plus we know the ending; something that shouldn’t hamper a musical if all the elements are firing, but when only some of them are, or they’re firing intermittently, then it can feel like just going through the motions, which is where Bruce currently resides.  

Performances: Good for the most part, but the characters are types, even if they are based on real people. Nobody has an arc or develops much. The only minor exception is Jarrod Spector as Spielberg who gets to show some different sides to the director, bouncing easily between boyish/enthusiastic/charming to unsure/freaking out under pressure. What Spector really delivers is an ability to hold everything together. You know the show is in assured hands with him at the helm.  

Design: The production has two modes. The first involves a 3x3 grid unit meant to represent Hollywood, studio offices and such. It’s tall and dominates the whole stage. It works ok, but quickly you start wondering how and when things will "open up", which they eventually do, and the rest of the show, set at Martha’s Vineyard during filming, is played on the open stage. The flow of everything is fairly cinematic, lots of short scenes. No real choreography to speak of, and the main goal is just to manage traffic and keep things proceeding smoothly, which Donna Feore accomplishes between cast and set elements. 

The material itself: Book is solid, workmanlike. Nothing surprising. Hits all the beats you’d expect. Definitely goes for the easy jokes, low hanging and obvious fruit. The music and lyrics for this show are fashioned less around individual songs and written more as sequences. For example, the opening number - probably titled something like “This Is The Big One” - doesn’t so much end as give way to the next cue. Oberacker and Taylor are going for a seamless effect, but at times the score can feel like a run-on sentence lacking satisfying punctuation. My favorite song was actually a relatively minor comic number for a pair of Australian shark experts who contributed footage early in the production of the movie; the incorporation of this duo for a single scene was silly and creative, an unexpected delight. 

As for future prospects, I’m not sure. Bruce is a fun evening but that’s all. I don’t see how the creators can do much to fix this, besides polishing some dialogue and sharpening characterizations. The story is the story; they’ve made it as engaging as they can and the cast are game, but it just doesn’t find that spark. And no one’s to blame, the spark probably just doesn’t exist. I do applaud Seattle Rep for taking a huge swing with this show, continuing to prove how committed they are to developing big projects.  

Updated On: 6/6/22 at 10:57 PM

[KevinKlawitter]

Posted: 6/19/22 at 4:33pm

Critics from the Seattle Times are mixed-negative, but seem weirdly fixated on the fact that the shark doesn't have a bigger role 

Variety is mixed-negative 

Theatremania is mixed-negative 

Consensus seems to be the book is rudimentary and most of the songs unremarkable, but Jarrod Spector is giving a really strong performance as Spielberg.

 

 

[ACL2006]

Posted: 6/19/22 at 5:32pm

There's no way this is coming to Broadway anytime soon.

[BookandLyricsby]

Posted: 6/19/22 at 5:44pm

Yeah, unfortunately the reviews are spot on. There's just not enough there there with "Bruce". 

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 6/19/22 at 5:59pm

This is a really weird topic to musicalize. That being said I am interested in hearing the score just out of sheer curiosity.

[KevinKlawitter]

Posted: 6/20/22 at 10:50am

Seattle Gay Scene is negative, with a few bright spots in characters and story. 

Broadway World is positive 

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 6/20/22 at 11:10am

ACL2006 said: "There's no way this is coming to Broadway anytime soon."

Never once at any time was the moniker “Broadway-bound” ever used on this production so no one is looking at this as a pre-Broadway tryout of any kind.