Robert Downey Jr. Makes His Broadway Debut With a Witty, Charismatic Performance in ‘McNeal’

It has been said that good artists copy and great artists steal, and it would seem that in recent years such pursuits, along with those of many lesser talents, have been increasingly facilitated by technology. Early in Ayad Akhtar’s new play, “McNeal,” the title character, a celebrated author, is accepting a highly prestigious award when he veers into a delicious screed against artificial intelligence.Jacob McNeal, played in this production by Robert Downey Jr., marking the Oscar-winning film star’s Broadway debut, notes: “AI language models writing books and plays and shows today work by breaking down the future into word order.” He argues that “the future is still one of our two great existential unknowns, and no matter what the data purports to tell us, Palo Alto is no Delphi. Sam Altman is no oracle.”I’ll confess that I almost stood up and cheered at this swipe at the tech mogul, who has been known to refer to writers as “content creators.” Yet as we will learn over the next 90 minutes, Jacob himself is no paragon of literary or moral virtue; and Mr. Akhtar, whose probing social conscience and capacity for finding nuance in divisive issues have informed works such as “JUNK” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Disgraced,” is interested in something more complicated than a takedown of Silicon Valley.The other great unknown that Jacob mentions in his speech is death. The play opens with a doctor’s appointment, during which he is warned that his drinking is slowly killing him, and this sense of mortality will drive a mix of soul-searching and denial. Jacob is as fascinated with AI as he is appalled by it, as director Bartlett Sher and his design team emphasize with dazzling visual and sound effects when, for example, the author on several occasions tries to rework texts in his own writing voice.Robert Downey Jr. and Rafi Gavron in ‘McNeal.’ Matthew Murphy and Evan ZimmermanJacob’s other problem, at least as his critics see it, is women. Like Ernest Hemingway, Philip Roth, and Jonathan Franzen, to cite just a few real-life bards, this protagonist has been accused of misogyny; not by coincidence, all but one of the play’s characters are female, including his late wife, Jessica, who has committed suicide. We meet her nonetheless, via Jake Barton’s projections and a digital composite by AGBO, which enables Jacob’s face to merge eerily with hers and those of two noted subjects of his historical fiction, Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater.It turns out that Jessica’s inspiration on her husband’s latest project, which centers on a woman, may have crossed a bright red line, and as “McNeal” progresses, Jacob’s personal and creative quirks become more interconnected, bringing time-old questions about separating artists from their art into a contemporary context.If Mr. Akhtar’s dialogue, with its name-dropping of noted scribes and inside talk about editing and publishing, will be catnip for writers and avid readers alike (as well as critics), few fresh insights are provided here, and the high-tech staging can result in an alienating coolness at times. Still, under Mr. Sher’s characteristically intuitive guidance, the actors — among them Ruthie Ann Miles, touching as the doctor, and Andrea Martin, predictably tart and funny as Jacob’s agent — are all sharp and affecting.Jacob, notwithstanding his existential pondering, is no Hamlet, but Mr. Downey turns in a witty, charismatic performance. The star is particularly compelling in scenes that find Jacob interacting with the younger characters, from his embittered 20-something son (a lacerating Rafi Gavron) to a Black female reporter (Brittany Bellizeare, showing a breezy authority) who proves both smarter and more generous than Jacob expects.“I remember a time when you’d never get in trouble for telling the truth,” Jacob tells the journalist. That word, truth, pops up 18 times in “McNeal,” and not by accident: If popular terms like “lived experience” are now used to suggest objectivity where it shouldn’t necessarily apply, Mr. Akhtar reminds us that debates over authenticity and the limits of creative license are nothing new — even if the tools and agents are constantly changing.

Robert Downey Jr. Makes His Broadway Debut With a Witty, Charismatic Performance in ‘McNeal’

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