Theater: “McNeal” starring Robert Downey Jr.

AI (artificial intelligence) seems to be on everyone’s radar. It’s the new new thing in Silicon Valley. When you look at photographs, you wonder if they’re real or faked.

If you’re in business, you may use Chat GPT to develop content. But will it ever be able to get a novelist on the bestseller list? That is what’s being asked in Ayad Akhtar’s new play “McNeal” (Vivian Beaumont), which takes place “in the very near future.”

Robert Downey Jr. makes his Broadway debut as Jacob McNeal, an arrogant Texas-born author who is drinking himself to death and seems blithely unconcerned about it. After years of churning out moderately successful books, he learns he’s won the Nobel Prize for literature. In his acceptance speech in Oslo, McNeal denounces AI but he acknowledges he used it to write his acceptance speech. Hmm.

We soon discover that one of his recent and most popular novels—about Barry Goldwater—was not written completely from scratch but by inputting ideas from a variety of different authors into the AI process. The bot then spits out a tale “in the style of Jake McNeil.”

You begin to wonder what extent AI influenced his Nobel work, which revealed not only an extramarital affair but TMI about his family. This makes for a great read but infuriates his son (Rafi Gavron) and former GF (Melora Hardin.)

All is revealed by the end of the play but in a somewhat confusing manner. Which is appropriate because the whole message of the play is about the blurring of the lines between AI and reality.

“McNeal” is clearly a one-man show built around the star power of RDJ. He delivers a nuanced performance as a charming, alcoholic misogynist who, we discover, has met and then admitted to “envying Harvey Weinstein.” The wonderful Andrea Martin as his agent and Ruthie Ann Miles as his doctor add much needed bits of humor and warmth to the uneven proceedings.

On a positive note, there are some eye-catching projections by Jake Barton and digital effects by ABGO which demonstrate how NcNeal constructs a novel mixing bits and pieces from different sources. It makes writing a book look as easy as following a recipe for Chicken Marbella. But as every writer knows, it is never that simple.

For people who understand AI, this is a smart, well-done, timely play. If this is a big “so what?” to you, RDJ has another “Avengers” movie opening in 2026. Wait for that.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you

!