We Asked ChatGPT to Review Robert Downey Jr.'s Broadway Debut in the AI Drama McNeal

My first prompt was, “Write a review of the play McNeal by Ayad Akhtar in the style of David Gordon from TheaterMania.”

ChatGPT gave me a generic review of Akhtar’s play Junk instead, and most of the facts were wrong. “ChatGPT can make mistakes,” it says in gray font at the bottom of the page. “Check important info.”

I included more data: “McNeal stars Robert Downey Jr. in his Broadway debut as a writer who wins the Nobel Prize for Literature on the same day he discovers that he’s dying of liver failure. He has an obsession with artificial intelligence, and also may have stolen his dead wife’s novel and published it under his name.” Once again, Junk, literally and figuratively.

I uploaded the press release for the show, with appropriate characters (doctor, agent, ex-girlfriend), their portrayers (Ruthie Ann Miles, Andrea Martin, Melora Hardin), director (Bartlett Sher), and designers. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Finally, I supplied some opinions, along the lines of the following: “All mega-stars of Downey’s caliber that come to Broadway should be as willing as he is to take on a thorny new American play where he never leaves the stage, instead of warhorses like Glengarry Glen Ross.”

That put me in the right ballpark, but this experiment in using AI to create a theater review that was both accurate and in my own voice felt more like an intellectual exercise than an emotional one. Oddly, that’s also how I felt about the play.

So, in that spirit, here is the ChatGPT-generated “David Gordon” review of McNeal, with my attendant cuts, edits, and rewrites. Anything the bot included that didn’t feel like me is bolded with a strikeout. What I added is bolded parenthetically, with two noted exceptions. Everything else was “written” by ChatGPT from the information I uploaded.

Ayad Akhtar’s McNeal (now playing at the Vivian Beaumont Theater) is an intense, cerebral drama that grapples with identity, legacy, and self-destruction, all wrapped around the magnetic presence of Robert Downey Jr. making his Broadway debut. Directed with meticulous attention to emotional detail (craft) by Bartlett Sher at the Beaumont Theater, this play is both an intellectual puzzle and a raw meditation on artistic greatness (that intertwines themes of art, mortality, and technology). If Disgraced was a polemic about faith and identity, McNeal digs deeper into personal and creative ruin, though it often leaves the audience grappling for emotional clarity amid its layered complexity.

In the opening scene, we meet Jacob McNeal (Downey) at what should be the pinnacle of his career. He’s just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, a momentous achievement for any writer. But this victory is immediately undercut by devastating news: Dr. Sahra Grewal (Ruthie Ann Miles, delivering a poignant and steady performance) informs him that his years of alcoholism have led to stage 4 liver failure. The juxtaposition of triumph and impending death sets the tone for the entire play, as McNeal is forced to confront his personal demons alongside his professional success.

The central conflict of McNeal revolves around the mystery of McNeal’s latest novel, a work that may or may not have been plagiarized from a manuscript written by his late wife, who tragically took her own life years earlier. This revelation casts a long shadow pall over McNeal’s success, forcing the audience to question the line between genius and theft (our perception of whether McNeal is an icon or a fraud. Downey, a bit stiff to start out but ultimately proving to be a natural for the stage, handles this ambiguity with relish; he’s clearly having a great time playing both sides of the coin, deliberately confusing us in the process.)

The following paragraph required so much back and forth between me and my insentient overlord I finally just wrote it myself:

The supporting performances are generally competent, though the roles tend to be either underwritten, overwritten, or lacking in credibility. Rafi Gavron, as McNeal’s estranged son Harlan, struggles to convey the intensity needed for his pivotal confrontation with Jacob over his late mother’s manuscript, leaving key moments feeling flat. Brittany Bellizeare’s Natasha, a New York Times reporter who’s sort of interested in exposing McNeal, comes across as unconvincing, but that’s more a fault of the writing than the actor. Andrea Martin, as McNeal’s long-time agent Steph, brings her usual comedic flair to the proceedings. She’s comfortable in the part, but it’s clear she could perform this kind of role in her sleep.

Back to the bot:

Sher’s direction keeps the production fluid, navigating Akhtar’s dense, idea-driven script with clarity and tension. The minimalist maximal set(s) by Michael Yeargan and Jake Barton effectively transforms the Beaumont stage into both a physical and psychological battleground (a digital wasteland). The lighting by Donald Holder and sound by Justin Ellington and Beth Lake heighten the play’s eerie (peculiar) atmosphere, while Barton’s projections underscore the existential threat of AI encroaching on human creativity. Sher’s staging also employs several deep fakes of Downey, both digital from the Hollywood tech firm AGBO, and, more remarkably, live in person. McNeal blends the technological and theatrical in disorienting and thrilling ways — I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

The AI conclusion wasn’t right either. Here’s my version:

But the emotional stakes of the play are often too distant for us to really cling to. While McNeal tackles up-to-the-minute themes on a grand scale, the result feels like a chatbot’s attempt to write a review of a theater production it never saw, all head, little heart. Regardless, Akhtar still makes important points about art being a uniquely human invention that connects the masses, and how computer-generated creations may be able to come close, but they could never replicate the same relationship.

Warts and all, the play itself is a bold and rigorous choice from Lincoln Center Theater, and from a celebrity actor who could have easily rested on his laurels. At this point, Downey has nothing left to prove, and I’m heartened that he chose something this prickly to contend with in the same year that he won an Oscar and agreed to a $100 million payday to play Dr. Doom. McNeal is an undeniably provocative experience, and a must-see for anyone who likes a good challenge.