The management at New York’s Lincoln Center has brought into its spacious Beaumont Theatre a flashy new production called McNeal by the highly regarded Ayad Aktar whose plays Disgraced and Junk have brought him Tony nominations and the Pulitzer Prize. Several other works have also enhanced his reputation as a distinguished contributor to the theatrical scene on and off Broadway and in the regional theaters of the USA and Britain. This new work is a drama that runs well over 90 minutes in one very long intermission-less act. Its format would make it less cumbersome were it structured more conventionally. Mr. Akhtar is a linguist, and his seven characters use speech–eloquent speech–as a weapon with which to discuss ideas on the modus vivendi of literate folks who connect them to the playwright around whom the discussion revolves.
Bartlett Sher has directed them all into a glorious concoction that looks like it might have been produced by Florenz Ziegfeld. It is set on the huge Beaumont stage where between the dozen or more scenes thousands of digitally programmed lights flash; lush curtains come flying from the wings and the flies; and in one dramatic moment, the floor moves to allow a startling surprise to keep us tuned in to the end.
Robert Downey Jr. is here making his Lincoln Center Theatre and Broadway debuts after years of acclaim on large and small screens. He coauthored with Thomas Kostigan a New York Times best selling book titled Cool Food. He is a resourceful actor, and he immerses himself all though the play in the confrontations with others whose ideas clash with his own. Impressive as these encounters often were, I did not find myself engaged. I felt I was being asked to sit in on a very long series of spoken ideas. With only modest voice projection, it was often difficult to hear some of the particularly ambitious dialog in which those ideas were tossed around. I did find Andrea Martin as McNeal’s very aggressive agent both amusing and terrifying at the same time. Again, I would like to have learned more about what made her tick than to see only the results of what living her life has done to her.
Michael Yeargan has designed the sets as though it were a grand opera, His ten designs at the Metropolitan Opera and at major opera companies throughout the USA, Europe, and Australia have made him an ideal choice to bring a sumptuous look to this well-intentioned ambitious drama.