AARON Sorkin clearly owes a little something to television, and “The West Wing” creator has decided to pay some of that little something back in “The Farnsworth Invention.”
Sorkin’s tale tells the story of TV pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth (Jimmi Simpson), his triumphs and travails, the latter centered around TV super-mogul David Sarnoff (Hank Azaria) and his pet organization, RCA.
But Sorkin has gotten some – possibly a lot – of his facts wrong. Following an apparently undisputed feature about Farns-
worth in The Post last week, Sorkin’s producers are now calling this “a memory play.”
Even Shakespeare was somewhat historically shaky in that “memory play” he called “Richard III,” in which he made the king a hunchback. But Shakespeare knew “the play’s the thing,” not the historical superstructure beneath it.
A good story is a good story, even if, like an unkempt rosebush, it needs pruning.
What Sorkin finds up his playwright’s sleeve is one of drama’s eternal themes, about Faust (the inventor Farnsworth) and Mephistopheles (the conniving tempter/exploiter Sarnoff). Since the TV business always needs a twist, Sorkin’s Faust resists temptation – and dies, it seems, a drunk.
Presumably the original idea was for a movie or TV script, but this play – Sorkin’s first to be produced here since his modestly successful courtroom drama of a Marine coverup in “A Few Good Men” – may be a toe-testing tryout for an eventual screenplay.
Sorkin’s take on the Farnsworth/Sarnoff standoff would be better suited to a screen, either big or small. Even now, while crackling with crisp dialogue, “The Farnsworth Invention” often has the air of a clumsy stage adaptation of, say, “Citizen Kane.”
Its very busyness detracts from it as a stage play – plus the fact that all but two of its 19 actors play multiple roles.
This is particularly risky with an actor of indelible image, such as the burly, commendable and very noticeable Michael Mulhern, who plays “Leslie Gorrell and others.” We’ve scarcely gotten to know him as Leslie Gorrell (whoever he was) then Mulhern’s off and running, playing unnamed “others.”
No doubt Shakespeare faced in “Richard III” the same problems as Sorkin here. But I know Shakespeare, and Sorkin is no Shakespeare. He’s not even an Orson Welles.
To his considerable credit, director Des McAnuff – who brilliantly staged such broad-spanned musicals as “Jersey Boys” and “The Who’s Tommy” – manages to keep the central story line intact as Sorkin wanders along the wilder shores of biography.
He’s helped by the smartly minimalist stage design of Klara Zieglerova, and the general performance of his Protean cast, particularly Simpson as the innocent genius, a Jimmy-Stewartishly rumpled Farnsworth, and the smoothly opportunistic and charmingly ruthless Azaria as the nicely tailored Sarnoff.
It all makes for a decent night out in the theater – especially if you can imagine you’re watching a movie.
THE FARNSWORTH INVENTION
The Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St.; (212) 239-6200.