Aaron Sorkin's The Farnsworth Invention is a fascinating play that is surprisingly engaging for this serious look at the theft of Farnsworth's invention - one he even thought of the name for "television" -- by David Sarnoff and RCA. It is awfully good writing as the conflict grows, sprinkled with good humor. But it's seriously flawed by the intrusion of anachronistic vulgarities that destroy the reality of the time. It would have been unthinkable back then to sprinkle speech with "the F word."
That expletive came into common use well after World War II.
Director Des McAnuff keeps the physical action flowing on Klara Zieglerova's active set, and the leads, Hank Azaria and Jimmi Simpson are quite good. The rest of the cast is a mixture of actors who are totally believable with declaimers who, to me, are barely adequate, and the play plateaus early in Act Two with some encyclopedic recitations.
The totality is a flawed but worthwhile play about an ironic piece of history well brought to life theatrically.
