farnovision

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.

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.

"Slipping" Into Oblivion?

According to Variety, Broadway box-office grosses slip this time every year, but apparently "The Farnsworth Invention's" box-office drop could be construed as more than just "seasonal."

The seasonal slowdown on Broadway continued last week, with B.O. slipping by around $1.2 million to an estimated $14.3 million for 31 shows on the boards.

Receipts dropped for nearly every production on the Rialto. In terms of percentages, the biggest dip was seen by "The Farnsworth Invention," down by 31% to $186,342, with "Chicago" ($245,076), "Avenue Q" ($233,723) and "The Phantom of the Opera" (dropping $120,000 to $475,303) all off about 20% each.

Of course, over here at "fact -v- fiction" HQ, we might like to think that the loss of interest in Aaron Sorkin's play is directly attributable to it's factual failings, but I suspect there is probably more to it than that. Audiences no doubt forgive all kinds of historical transgressions so long as the play itself is adequately engaging. So there must be something missing besides historical accuracy.

Baird Again

I don't know why we (?) are even having this debate about Farnsworth -v- Sarnoff, RCA, Zworykin, etal, when anybody who is even remotely familiar with the subject knows that Scotsman John Logie Baird really invented television, as this clip clearly demonstrates:

Just behind Copernicus

Link: Top 100 most influential people in History

# 28 Nicolas Copernicus

# 29 Socrates (just because of his reputation)

# 30  Philo T. Farnsworth (invented electronic television that most closely resembles contemporary ones)

And BEFORE Moses, no less (#32).

A "Second Life" for Farnsworth?

Link: 'Farnsworth Invention' Hits Best Week Yet at Music Box

Broadway's The Farnsworth Invention celebrated its best week yet at the Music Box Theatre.  The new play by Aaron Sorkin grossed $346,739.00 for the week ending December 30, 2007.

For those in the cast and crew, this is certainly good news. But, then, in light of the previous post... you do have to wonder.

Do We See The Problem Yet?

Yeah, I know, it's "just a play."  But like I keep saying, too many people -- like this one -- leave the theater thinking what they've just seen is an accurate portrayal of history, and then arrive at all kinds of wrong conclusions based on what they've just seen:

What brings Philo T. Farnsworth down, what causes him to lose out to the wily David Sarnoff, is that he believes that science should be done in the open. He’s stuck with a problem in implementing television, and he’s delighted to see a fellow engineer show up in San Francisco who wants to talk to him. But the engineer turns out to be an RCA employee who then returns to the East Coast and succeeds in transmitting a clear picture- something that Farnsworth had been unable to do.

Next person who tells me "it's just a play" is going to get hit over the head with the heaviest history book I can get off my bookshelf. Remember what George Santayana said. You do know who he was, right? No, not the guy John Wayne defeated at the Alamo...

Let Me Repeat That....

....for those of you on drugs:

Here, again, we see why ultimately this play serves the RCA party line, as yet another viewer who doesn't know the real story comes away from the theater thinking they've just  seen its genuine re-enactment:

Even though Farnsworth sued Sarnoff and RCA, he eventually lost his patent claims on a technicality of a previous held patent by Zworykin from 1923

Now repeat after me:  Farnsworth WON all his litigation against RCA, he retained all his patents, and RCA was ultimately forced to pay him no less than $1-million to use those patents.  Three years later RCA snuck Zworykin's 1923 application through a lay court on some technicality in order to spend the next (now) seventy years making the case that results in misconceptions like this writer's -- aided and abetted by "historical drama" like The Farnsworth Invention.

Likewise, The Village Voice

The Village Voice has posted it's review of The Farnsworth Invention:

Farnsworth never explores any aspect of the story deeply. From the sources of the stirrings that made a rural potato-farmer's kid an electronics whiz by high-school age to the seismic shift in social patterns caused by the mass success of radio and then TV, everything is brushed in, snappily, with a factoid or two, encased in a wisecrack whenever possible, as on those TV docudramas that leave you wishing you'd been told the real story instead.

And to think... the real story was right there all the time... <*sigh*>