‘McNeal’ Review: Robert Downey Jr. Confronts A Fake New World In A Fearless Broadway Debut
deadline.comSlow to grab hold and knotty when it does, Ayad Akhtar’s McNeal, opening tonight and starring Robert Downey Jr. in a formidable Broadway debut, is, at its core, a sort of literary parlor game: Let’s take that most mighty of 20th Century book-chat tropes – the macho, aging male superstar novelist who amorally mines the lives and works of his enemies, his betters and, most cruelly, his loved ones, as grist for his art, fuel for his bank accounts and supply chain for his trophy shelves.
Now drop him into the brave new world of AI, where thievery can be accomplished with an ease and at a magnitude heretofore unimagined.
Does the artificiality of artificial intelligence – the very complexity of the enterprise – place some kind of moral distance between our writer and his actions?
Are his hands somehow cleaner? Or is he still the same miserable old shit who would sell out his own son if it meant another bestseller?
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