‘McNeal’ review: Robert Downey Jr.’s awful Broadway play about AI is a total wipeout
nypost.comThe 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.
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