Wisconsin Premiere of Ayad Akhtar’s McNeal. A.I.A.I. Oh.
Ayad Akhtar’s McNeal is ostensibly about artificial intelligence. But I am here to suggest it was written with artificial intelligence. There are a number of intimations and subtexts that might suggest so. Some of them apparent by the queries fed into an AI app as displayed across the top of the set and the replies then received. All very realistic and wholly believable for the current state of AI.
We know that Jacob McNeal’s latest novel is written by AI. He admits as much after telling his agent that it only took two days to write. And we know it is true since we saw his prompts along the top of the set and the volumes and volumes of output that he received back. What is the novel about? Well I have a guess and I suggest that Akhtar fed it back into his AI app and got the play McNeal out of it. SPOILER ALERT: A sad, twisted, retelling of Hedda Gabler with the genders re-assigned and relationships altered…but there are tell tale signs (well other than the queries into AI which are blatantly displayed), like the ‘missing’ and burned manuscript, the wish to ‘recreate’ it from scratch, and finally when a major female character eats her pistol after waving it around at McNeal, all in a hallucination, yet.
And this feels like a one character play…yes I know there are six other characters…but the focus is so intensely on McNeal and his feelings and actions are so focused on McNeal that all other characters seem to fade away (which is also much like Hedda Gabler). And given the computer based nature of our discourse, where computers work via the manipulations of ones and zeroes, lets just say that Jacob McNeal is a ONE and everyone else is a ZERO.
There is something else here that speaks to today. We first meet McNeal as he is using AI to determine his place in the pecking order for winning a Nobel Prize in Literature. Not getting the responses he wants, he keeps editing his prompts until they give him what he is looking for. It is clearly an obsession. Unlike that other guy you are thinking about, McNeal eventually wins. And that starts a whole new set of experiences for the audience as director Mark Clements and his production staff cosplay with AI and project McNeal into a reward ceremony and later morph his face into Ronald Regan and Barry Goldwater and back. Certainly very equivalent to videos we often see on social media and maybe a little reminiscent of certain Forrest Gump experiences some thirty years ago?
But yes, the play revolves around the myriad questions we all hold about AI. So plagiarism, influences, truth, disclosure, what is art, what is an artist, and what is art making. However, you will not find any answers here.
Interestingly, Akhtar delineates McNeal with the stereotypes we have accumulated around male novelists: moody, depressive, brilliant, reclusive, grouchy, compulsive, anti-social, misogynistic, suicidal, and alcoholic. Chekhov is rolling over in is grave. Amazingly Peter Bradbury takes that all in stride and makes it too very real on stage. From orator to falling down drunk to troubled spouse and parent, Bradbury is wholly believable and makes us feel McNeal. I am not sure if we have any empathy for him or not…I don’t think that I can find that in me…but I know Bradbury’s McNeal is real. I know it!
Jeanne Paulsen plays McNeal’s agent Stephie Banic, as an appealing tough cookie who takes care of her client professionally but has a soft spot as well that Paulsen shows the audience in her questions and care of McNeal…but something, I think, McNeal remains unaware of even when he’s doing something she urged him to do and he stoutly refused to do initially (I assure you that this run on sentence wasn’t written my AI). She’s impressed with the Nobel but more interested in the commercial opportunities it may provide. Paulsen stays cool under fire. The other character who provides some push back is Natasha Brathwaite, played by N’Jameh Camara. Camara comes on like the NY Times special feature reporter she portrays here, but she softens as her interview with McNeal continues even admitting she liked his books more than she expected. Camara knows when to be direct and knows when to shift to coy in playing Brathwaite. Bridget Ann White is feisty and intense as Francine Blake but this part isn’t big enough to showcase her whole talent. Hopefully we will see her here on a Rep stage again!
McNeal is more than just a play premiere. It also celebrates the grand opening of the Herro-Franke Studio Theater. It replaces the Stiemke Studio Theater. And it is a major improvement…better seating (comfy!)…better and additional restrooms…and a real bar and better traffic flow through the lobby. And for this very first show, the seating bowl is shaped in a L-shape with the stage occupying one corner of the studio. And for McNeal the gnomes and elves in the Rep shops have created a rotating stage that facilitates the change in scenes and moods and environments. And they are breaking the third and fourth wall. I don’t want to leave out the lighting and sound crew who project and highlight the action but project scenic backgrounds with our change of locales…some of it AI generated since I recognized some buildings but they didn’t seem to be where they actually reside…and city noises in city scenes and rustic noises in rural ones. Sounds easy to miss given the concentration required to fully appreciate the story…but marvelous attention to detail.
and finally, to paraphrase Akhtar’s AI conjured ‘Prospero’ in his closing soliloquy: “Is it real or is it not real?” Well, I can’t tell you.
McNeal continues from now until March 22nd, 2026 at he Herro-Franke Studio Theater in the Associated Theater Center. More information and Tickets Here!
Running Time: Approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes with no intermission.
Recommended Age: 16 and up
Extra Credit Reading: The Program
Waukesha Civic Theatre Presents Sense And Sensibility
This was my first visit to Waukesha Civic Theatre. And, no, they are not a new theater, they’ve been providing quality theater in Waukesha since 1957. And it was something of a homecoming for me since I grew up in Pewaukee in the 1950s and 1960s because WCT is located in the Pix movie theater on Main Street in downtown Waukesha. So I saw a few pictures there as a child and later in my teen age dating years. That little bit of coincidence added a little warm feeling for a brisk February afternoon.
So, what is my first encounter with WCT? Kate Hamill’s unique adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. It isn’t the drama that you might expect but: Is it a Comedy of Errors? A Comedy of Manners? A Comedy of 18th Century Society? Or all of the above? I vote for that latter. And yes it is a comedy here, but not the laugh out loud comedy we often experience in our contemporary era. No, this is on the lighter side…the kind of humor that makes you peek at your neighbor what was that? Or roll your eyes in a dramatic, I get it, fashion. Or maybe a titter behind the palm of your hand quickly raised to your face. But it is still a serious play and stays true to the events in Austen’s original novel. But sometimes the acting is just a wee bit exaggerated and over the top…much to the audience’s and my delight.
Oh, Henry Dashwood, how little we knew ye. Henry Dashwood dies within the first few minutes of the play. And his passing is the very pivot point that launches all of the stories and sub stories that co-directors Ashley Levells-Riemer and Patrice L Hood are about to tell in a fast moving series of vignettes, black outs, and quick set changes. Henry left behind a wife, three daughters, and an adult son from a previous marriage. And because of the vagaries of 18th Century law, only the son could inherit Henry’s estate. So his son John, promises to support his step-mother and half-sisters from his inheritance. So we are off!
John Dashwood is played by Mark Thompson who establishes John as an earnest and resolute man determined to respect his fathers wishes. Unfortunately he has married into wealth. Thompson’s John is obviously enamored of his wife, Fanny, but is clearly in fear of her as well. But Amy Wickland’s Fanny is clearly a shrew and a manipulator and has John wrapped around her finger. And after John proposes a fair financial support for the four women, Fanny coyly and coldly and openly, negotiates the terms down to just paying for their moving fees as they are evicted from their home. Fortunately they are able to move to a cottage on the estate of another relative and are also invited to ‘visit’ a number of other notables and relatives.
(Amelie Davis-Quiroz). Photo by Anne Kenny Creative
I am not going to go into too many details of the story. All of you Austen fans know this one by heart and for the rest of us, let’s not spoil the surprise. But you will certainly glean any number of details as I outline some of the characters in the play and the characters who play them.
Mack Bates certainly has a presence on stage as he plays Sir John Middleton with a certain sense of pomp and a certain sense of dignity, all supported by an awe inspiring sense of whimsy underneath. Such fun and Bates is obviously an audience favorite. And our youngest Miss Dashwood is played by Makayla Lloyd. Lloyd provides a saucy teenager who is curious, bored, overwrought, or just plain done with the goings on of the adults…just like you’d expect a teenager to behave. Angie Rodenkirch’s Mrs. Dashwood is a common sense go with the flow mother who just wants stability and the best for her daughters.
And the other two Miss Dashwood? Elinor is the eldest and she is played by Del Lovejoy. Lovejoy portrays a deep thinking rather stoic and quietly conservative young adult. Despite not having much more real world experience than many of the other young people, she seems to invite confidentialities and questions of advice. At times she is in deep pain but no one but Elinor knows it and Lovejoy maybe signals that a bit in her manner but never in her voice. And of course Marianne, the middle Dashwood. Attractive, outgoing, and interested in novels and theater, Amelie Davis-Quiroz plays her to a tee. Davis-Quiroz catches all of the excitement and all of the anguish involved in Marianne’s character as she is the magnet that draws in all of the eligible men.
Elinor (Del Lovejoy) and Margaret (Makayla Lloyd) observe. Photo by Anne Kenny Creative
And the suitors? Colonel Brandon is an older man…probably a bit out of the ordinary for what most would consider an appropriate suitor for Marianne. Stefan Kent’s Brandon is a seasoned military man who is kind and never overbearing. He sees what needs to be done and takes care of it without asking. Kent’s portrayal brings a real person to life, unlike many of the other characters who are a bit ‘over the top’ (and I do mean that in a delightful way). And Willoughby: he finds Marianne with a sprained ankle and carries her home and soon carries her heart. Noah Merz gives us a very worldly Willoughby but also exhibits his rather foppish demeanor. That very practiced doffing and donning of his top hat eliciting any number of titters and snickers from the audience. And Edward Ferrars is our last gentleman, played by Tyler Glor. Ferrars is a nervous nelly and shivers when reading aloud and often stutters when speaking. Glor’s management of these social stigmas is wondrous and explicit and again elicits responses from the audience. He plays them to the hilt. His early scenes are reading with Marianne so I was slow catching on that there was a growing connection between Ferrars and Elinor.
One other pair of characters help push Sense and Sensibility from a drama to a comedy…and they are the Steele Sisters, Anne and Lucy. Laura Kloser is Anne and Caitlyn Nettesheim is Lucy. They play well together. The sisters are silly, loud, and often obnoxious…ne’er do wells?? Well at least on the surface but they are a noisy counterpoint to much of the more ‘serious’ characters we’ve encountered. But Kloser and Nettesheim catch their sly and devious sides too when they don’t have a larger audience.
And there is a happy ending.
My guesstimation is the play runs about two hours plus a fifteen minute intermission.
Sense and Sensibility runs from now through February 22nd, 2026 at the Margaret Brate Bryant Civic Theatre, 264 West Main Street in downtown Waukesha.
More information tickets can be found here.
Extra credit reading: The Playbill!