Theater review
MCNEAL
One hour and 40 minutes, with no intermission. At Lincoln Center Theater, 160 W. 65th Street.<br>
The tiresome Broadway play “McNeal,” starring Robert Downey Jr., is about every windbag’s favorite topic — AI.
In Ayad Akhtar’s drama, which opened Monday night at Lincoln Center, those two letters are, of course, supposed to stand for Artificial Intelligence.
But as the story ambles on and on, their meaning evolves.
To Audience Irritated.
Should your sole aim be to watch the Marvel and “Oppenheimer” actor, who’s making his Broadway debut, give a capable performance in his signature Tony Stark staccato, mission accomplished.
However, it is, well, a marvel how even the most blinding star power can dim when blacked out by a mind-numbing plot, mouthpiece supporting characters and a Universal Studios-scale set of giant screens that’s an expensive apology for the actual play.
Even Iron Man is no match for a fatally shoddy script.
The actor plays a brilliant writer and pretentious jerk named Jacob McNeal, whose dream is to win the Nobel Prize in Literature — a Lincoln Center hero if there ever was one.
Downey Jr. does variations on this cold-and-catty type in films all the time, so while he’s undeniably confident and charismatic, no surprises await you.
McNeal wins the Nobel, naturally. While talking with his doctor, who’s concerned about his drinking, he gets the fateful call from Sweden and soon he’s flying out to bloviate at Europeans.
But the origin of his next novel, “Evie,” is murky.
On those enormous screens upstage, we watch the author ask AI to rework classic texts “in the style of Jacob McNeal.”
And the writer’s son Harlan (Rafi Gavron), who’s still traumatized by his mother’s suicide, confronts him about the book’s resemblance to material he might have stolen.
It sounds more lucid when summarized than as staged by Bartlett Sher — the director’s third crummy new play in as many years.
The author-with-a-secret aspect brings to mind the Glenn Close film “The Wife,” only more jumbled and far less engrossing. Call it “The WiFi.”
No one can accuse Akhtar of lacking ideas. He slathers the show in constant, disparate thoughts that go nowhere.
When McNeal is interviewed by a New York Times reporter named Natasha (Brittany Bellizeare), he asks the black woman if she is a “diversity hire.” Topping himself, he then expresses his admiration for Harvey Weinstein’s taste in film.
Later, when our brains are already floating to the 66th Street 1 train, an ethical quandary is introduced between Jacob and a Times editor. The point of that, I do not know.
Also stirring up confusion is the AI-generated head of Robert Downey Jr. that’s blown up to movie theater size and occasionally superimposed on Ronald Reagan.
There’s an interminable bench scene in which Jacob’s confronted by dull figments of his imagination.
And, oh, wait for the fleeting suggestion of incest. Can’t forget that.
It’s also never quite clear how much of the action is actually happening or is just another story Jacob is working on.
For instance, right before the talk between McNeal and Harlan, the writer says to ChatGPT, “Pull material for a scene in which a father and son confront a family secret.”
Once again, that setup sounds juicier than it turns out to be.
Akhtar would have a much better show on his hands had he focused more on dangerous lies and relationships rather than checking off headlines and pondering the possible consequences of barely understood technology.
Much like being sat next to a cousin who’s into bitcoin, artificial intelligence is more theoretically intriguing than grippingly dramatic. Our eyes glaze over when people, fictional or otherwise, drone on about it.
McNeal, at least, gets the advantage of being pithy and cruel between his musings. The playwright’s other characters are as flat as a touchscreen.
Andrea Martin plays Stephie, his stereotypical book agent, whose every sentence has a whiff of “don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
Harlan gets one mode — angry.
And Natasha and Francine (Melora Hardin), the Times journalists, made me long for the days when stage depictions of reporters were fun.
There will surely be more plays and films about AI, its possibilities and perils to come.
But this frustrating early effort is bogged down by superficial intelligence.