McNEAL

Review by Celia Ipiotis

When does art cease to be the product of a single human being? In the Renaissance, great artists hired gangs of assistants to help complete massive paintings and frescoes. In the 20th century, sculptors frequently engaged assistants to cast, weld, and carve elements. Who’s to say when the artist totally owns their work or when it’s a shared creation?

In Ayad Akhtar’s McNeal, A ravenously self-centered novelist, Jacob McNeal is consumed by his legacy and at the moment, his odds of winning a Nobel Prize. Obsessively peering at this phone for clues pointing to “that” one call, he hardly hears, or apparently cares, when his physician (Ruthie Ann Miles) delivers a life threatening diagnosis of liver disease. Either believing he is invincible, or simply viewing life as a frivolous occupation, McNeal hardly registers the diagnosis while bolting down whiskey on his wasted liver.

Jacob’s manic energy makes him a suitable devotee who thrills over the jumble of information tumbling out of the internet. Feverishly directed by Bartlett Sherr, McNeal’s narcissism is only surpassed by his inability to sit or stand still. At some points it’s hard to believe that he ever had the focus to write so many heralded novels. Of course, Downey Jr. is an amazing dancer, and this comes through his nonstop physical moves, and gestures– everything is in exquisite motion from the top of his head and face to his toes. 

Throughout the show, projections by Jake Barton shape-shift across moveable walls by Michael Yeargan and Barton effectively establishing a sense of one’s very slippery life and infinite existence through the internet.  Jacob, who not surprisingly faces difficulties in his personal life, wins the Nobel Prize in Literature and delivers an untethered acceptance speech in Stockholm only to then obsess over his next book. What will it take for him to unlock the next work which will be viewed through inordinately high expectations? 

Jacob’s go-getting, smart-mouthed agent, comedian Andrea Martin, micro-manages him and is willing to do anything to sell as many books as possible. Blithely politically incorrect, Jacob encounters his estranged son (Rafi Gavron) who blames him for his mother’s suicide and a very sharp journalist (Brittany Bellizeare) who nearly unmasks Jacob–who has been co opting other people’s work for much of his celebrated career.

That AI generated text might be woven into a writer’s book is not shocking, nor does it represent a departure from past actions by artists. Although the play raises many questions, it does not strive to answer these larger ideas. 

Running for 90 minutes without an intermission at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, McNeal is a workout for Downey, Jr.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis