McNeal – 28 September 2024

McNeal posed interesting philosophical questions about artificial intelligence. Few of these questions were articulated in the play, leaving the task of making meaning of the experience in the hands of the audience. Though conceptually interesting, McNeal failed to move me emotionally. As I left the theater, I felt disappointed by this, but as I continued to ponder, I realized that the play was positing this to be the difference between artificial intelligence and actual humanity. Only humanity has the capacity to make us empathize and care, grow and change.

There were a couple of moments in the play that evoked this theme. Ironically, one was a moment that seemed to assert the opposite – the moment where Jacob McNeal (Robert Downey, Jr.) explained to his agent, Stephie Banie (Andrea Martin) that AI allows him to upload all of his feelings and already existing novels that resonate with what he’s feeling, and get a judgment free answer. Through AI, he is able to release his feelings and use them to help others. The acclaim and the fame are his proof that there are others who suffer the way he suffers and relate to the ideas he wanted to include in his book.

But then he flips the narrative. The process of throwing his ideas into a machine didn’t heal him the way the process of writing might have. He asserts that he is broken, lost, and struggling with suicidal ideation. Throughout the play, McNeal has gone back to important spaces and people in his life, pondering AI-written scenes as he searches for meaning. Rather than examining his actual life events, he sought out the sterility of watching them “in the style of Jacob McNeal”, seeking external validation that AI would generate clearer, easier to process answers that are still customized to his viewpoint and, in a sense, meet him where he’s at. In the end, this didn’t give him any satisfaction or relief from his pain.

The story was engaging and I never fell out of it. I was intrigued by my interpretation of McNeal looking at moments of his life that he had written about or wanted to write about through AI generated reimagining how those memories could have gone, including and acknowledging that his use of AI in this process was a shameful facsimile of real writing and real self exploration. He is scared to write for real after his wife’s introspective novel drove her to suicide.

McNeal as a production had a lot of merit, including beautifully flawless design elements, well-developed conceptual ideas, and actors who wholeheartedly committed to embodying their roles. But, at the end of the day, I didn’t find the characters likable. I didn’t feel emotionally invested in their stories. And, ultimately, I didn’t leave the theater with the kind of emotional catharsis that makes me go to the theater in the first place.

I did not attend this performance on a press pass.