The Farnsworth Invention

The wife and I took in the rare play (for us) this weekend: a Saturday matinee performance of "The Farnsworth Invention" at the Alley Theater. Aaron Sorkin, award-winning writer and mushroom-head, wrote it.

Here's the official blurb:

In 1929, two ambitious visionaries race against each other to introduce to the world a revolutionary new device called “television.” By the fall of 1921, an Idaho farm boy Philo T. Farnsworth had drawn a diagram of an “image dissector tube” for a prototype electronic television system. As he seeks to develop a functioning machine, Farnsworth is swept into an epic struggle with David Sarnoff, an enterprising media mogul who foresees the lucrative potential of this powerful cultural and scientific invention. Only one man will unlock the key to the greatest innovation of the 20th century and rule the airwaves. Drawn to the story about the race to create an operable television and the competition for the patent right to control the future of this technology, Aaron Sorkin describes his play as “an optimistic story about the spirit of exploration” in a National Public Radio interview. Recommended for mature audiences. Strong Language.

An optimistic story? Yeah, with big corporations screwing the little guy and perverting the airwaves with crap, I guess you can call that optimistic, if you're a corporation. It was very entertaining. I'd never heard of Farnsworth until I saw this play on the schedule. Another victim of big media. Now, Aaron, did they really say "fuck" that much back in the '20's? Really?