farnovision

Thank God Somebody Noticed

I haven't even looked yet to see who actually won the Tony Awards last night, but this came across my Google Alerts this morning:

9. Jimmi Simpson in The Farnsworth Invention. Another much overlooked performance was Simpson's Farnsworth in The Farnsworth Invention. He held his ground valiantly against Hank Azaria in the competition over who could first invent what we know as the television. He deftly handled all of Farnsworth's up and downs from his disappointments to the loss of his son to his occasional drunken episodes. As the season unfolded, Simpson's was one of the first to catch my eye.

So, uh, Aaron, you ever get that e-mail I sent you last month?  The one entitled "Priority of Invention"?  Or should I just post it here for you and all to see?

But Theater World Awards Come Thru

Link: Theatre World Awards Home.

At an annual ceremony and during an afternoon party attended by former winners and invited members of the theatre community, six actresses and six actors are presented with a Theatre World Award for their Debut Performance in a Broadway or Off-Broadway production.

The Theatre World Award remains the oldest one given for a debut theatre performance on On or Off-Broadway.

The contribution the Award has made to the theatre is incaluable. It is not a competition and is only given once. Because it is given for a debut performance, it encourages and inspires newcomers to the stage to continue to pursue their dream. It is freely given at a time when encouragement is so necessary in an industry known more for rejection than reception.

This year's award winners are:

de'Adre Aziza, Passing Strange
Cassie Beck, Drunken City
Daniel Breaker, Passing Strange
Ben Daniels, Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Deanna Dunagan, August: Osage County
Hoon Lee, Yellow Face
Alli Mauzey, Cry-Baby
Jenna Russell, Sunday in the Park with George
Mark Rylance, Boeing-Boeing
Loretta Ables Sayre, South Pacific
**Jimmi Simspson, The Farnsworth Invention**
Paulo Szot, South Pacific

The Theatre World Award winners are chosen by the Theatre World Awards committee, which is comprised of Peter Filichia (Theatermania.com), Harry Haun (Playbill), Matthew Murray (TalkinBroadway.com), Frank Scheck (New York Post), Michael Sommers (Newhouse Papers), Doug Watt (Critic Emeritus, New York Daily News), Linda Winer (New York Newsday), and coordinated by Peter Filichia, Theatre World Editor John Willis, and Theatre World Associate Editor Ben Hodges.

Tony Stiffs Philo

The 2008 Tony Award nominations have been announced. The Farnsworth Invention is not on the list.  Anywhere.

"Farnsworth" Gets Nominated

In what some will no doubt regard as a precursor to the Tony Awards, The Farnsworth Invention has garnered a number of nominations for the Drama League Awards:

Among new plays, “Eurydice” is the sole Off Broadway offering on a slate of nominees that includes new Pulitzer Prize winner “August: Osage County,” “The Farnsworth Invention,” “November,” “Rock ‘n’ Roll,” “The Seafarer,” “The 39 Steps” and “Thurgood.”

Included among the nods is "Distinguished Performance of a Play," and "Distingquished Peformance of An Actor" for Jimmi Simpson (Farsworth) and Hank Azaria (Sarnoff).

Nothing against Azaria, but we're rather pulling for Jimmi Simpson, who was positively riveting in the title role.

It's All In The Genes....

Or so one Farnsworth descendent would like to think:

Philo is my great grandfather's brother. Yeah! This is the statue of Philo T. Farnsworth at the Capital Building.

Perhaps it's possible that this claim to fame will have some effect on my children. For one, Philo was a very tall man (as you can see from the statue). Perhaps I've got some tiny bit of his genes, hidden somewhere in my body, that may be passed on to my son in hopes that he will gain some height genes from me (and not the genes that have kept me at 5'2").

Rigby, Idaho tops WIRED list of "Eureka" Places

The latest issue of WIRED magazine includes Philo Farnsworth's potato field among the short list of notable locations that have inspired great leaps in technology:

While plowing a field at age 14, Farnsworth — who had been studying electrons and vacuum tubes — looked out across the even furrows and was struck with an idea. He could project moving images line by line, and the eye would stitch them together: "I have abandoned the old idea of a whirling television disk with its motors and other contraptions. A simple beam of light now does the trick," he would later say. "The moment I discovered tools... which would enable television to be done without moving parts, the invention seemed almost simultaneous; as a matter of fact, simultaneously with the discovery that there was an electron and a photoelectric effect."

Who Invented Television?

Here's a blog post that seems to ask all the right questions:

Who Invented the Television?

Ask that question to anyone today and there is a good chance that you will be met with blank stares. Yet, ask people who invented the light bulb or the radio and the answers will come far more easily. This is an interesting phenomenon, considering that the television is probably the single biggest invention of this century. It is an invention that is so powerful, it changed the very way people live and view the world. It has also become one of the most powerful tools in the world.

So why it is that, hardly anyone knows who invented it? This is precisely what The Farnsworth Invention investigates. The play deals with the life of Philo T Farnsworth, a genius and Mormon farmer, who made the very first successful electronic television. His story isn't just about the invention of the television; it is also about the growth of corporate America and the ultimate demise of the independent inventor. The play follows the legal battle that Farnsworth had over the patent with David Sarnoff, the head of RCA. Even though Farnsworth would win the lawsuit, in many ways, he was among the last of America's great inventors.

However, that last sentence begs one more question: why was it necessary for the playwright to portray Farnsworth as LOSING that litigation, when the real story here is that he WON it?

Sounds like...

...somebody didn't exactly enjoy their night at the theater:

The Farnsworth Invention commits more than the mere mortal sin of being exposition heavy.  It is almost emotionally fraudulent.  When Sorkin wants you to feel a little something for one of the people in the piece, he throws in Cossack soldiers and dying children like he’s tossing Snickers bars into a little kids pillow cast on Halloween.  “Here you go, son, no big deal.”  We’re told about things like alcoholism and depression and shown none of it, with the painful exception of two drastically unintelligible bar scenes where all kinds of espionage is taking place.

So let's recap: historically inaccurate AND "emotionally fraudulent." Just who exactly stole Aaron Sorkin's soul to write this play, anyway? Well, it's not going to matter in another couple of weeks, and that, sadly, will be the last we hear of Philo Farnsworth for another generation.

Philo, We Hardly Knew Ye

I guess that's that:

The new Aaron Sorkin play The Farnsworth Invention, which explores the battle for the patent for the invention of television, will play its final performance at Broadway's Music Box Theatre March 2.

Murky History of Television Gets Murkier | LiveScience

Every now and then somebody else comes along who sees it pretty much the way I do:

Quickly the story moves on to debates regarding the legal issues of patents and intellectual property rights, both important topics, but science is relegated to a secondary consideration. Bizarrely, though Farnsworth won his first courtroom patent battle with RCA (though later losses drained his assets), the play depicts him as losing, obviously for dramatic effect. But the fact that such an artistic work, which seeks to bring Farnsworth to a wider audience, would engage in such blatant revision of history, casts doubts on the legitimacy of the entire venture.

Me, I just don't get how "dramatic license" can ever go so far as to permit the reversal of fundamental facts of history. And like the man says, the willingness to do so casts doubt on the rest of the enterprise.