Robert Downey Jr. makes his Broadway debut in ‘McNeal,’ a gripping new play where AI, creativity, and ethics collide.
Last night, the Lincoln Center Theater buzzed with excitement as Robert Downey Jr. made his much-anticipated Broadway debut, taking center stage as Jacob McNeal in ‘McNeal,’ a brand-new play by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar. This one-act drama delves into contemporary issues like artificial intelligence, artistic integrity, plagiarism, and copyright infringement. Previews began on September 5, 2024, at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, with opening night set for September 30, under the direction of Bartlett Sher.
In this ambitious, if somewhat meandering drama, Robert Downey Jr. takes on the role of Jacob McNeal, a celebrated but deeply flawed novelist. Perfectly cast in his rumpled “Important Novelist” attire, Downey embodies McNeal, an old-school writer teetering on the edge of ruin. He’s sexist, misogynistic, drinks excessively, and alternates between wallowing in self-pity and shouting about his grandiose ambitions. Narcissistic and plagued by dreams of Shakespeare, McNeal lives recklessly, and faces the looming threat of liver failure. Fresh from winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, his acceptance speech in Stockholm highlights the dilemmas posed by AI—a subject McNeal knows all too well, having secretly used AI to help write one or more of his books.
(Credit: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)
Set in “the very near future,” ‘McNeal’ depicts a world where predictive chatbots, large language models, and generative intelligence are pitted against their traditional analog counterparts. The play raises the question of what creative opportunities such technology offers to the artist. In a fitting echo of modern anxieties around technology, the characters themselves seem almost secondary, as if they’ve been overshadowed by the ideas driving them. Much of the play revolves around the complex story of McNeal using AI to jump-start a novel by inputting sections of his previous works, blended with Shakespeare, Ibsen, Flaubert, and Kafka. However, the AI angle serves mostly as a distraction from McNeal’s underlying struggle with writer’s block. Even before AI like GPT existed, McNeal had engaged in more conventional forms of plagiarism—exploiting the trauma of an ex-lover in his fiction and stealing his wife’s manuscript after her suicide. AI simply streamlines the unethical practices he’s always used.
The staging, created by Michael Yeargan and Jake Barton, is just as striking as the play itself. At the center of the sleek, minimalist stage stands a massive iPhone screen, which frequently lights up with calls and text messages throughout the performance. Large screens positioned on the sides allow the audience to visually follow McNeal’s use of artificial intelligence as he assembles his next scene, sifting through mountains of documents.
(Credit: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)
Downey’s performance is elevated by his stellar costars—Ruthie Ann Miles, Saisha Talwar, Rafi Gavron, Melora Hardin, Brittany Bellizeare, and Andrea Martin—each of whom steps up to either support or challenge McNeal throughout the play. Martin steals the spotlight as Stephie, McNeal’s no-nonsense literary agent who runs a tight ship while trying to protect her difficult client. Gavron, meanwhile, delivers one of the most heartfelt performances of the night as McNeal's estranged son Harlan, and Bellizeare shines as a New York Times reporter who feels like a breath of fresh air. However, these talented actors aren’t given much material to work with, as each appears in only one or two scenes.
