I'm one of those who has looked forward with great eagerness to the new Aaron Sorkin comedy-drama _Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip_. As with The West Wing, I realise that the show is likely not to appeal to some on AML-List for political and other reasons. (Note: I'm not interested in opening up sores on politics, at all.) But I'm a huge Sorkin fan, and I'm posting because I think I've found a Mormon link, even if a fairly tenuous one.
Studio 60 is not yet screening in Australia, but I've read an awful lot of stuff on the net, and a friend managed to get hold of a copy of the pilot episode (which I understand was doing the rounds quite widely as a pre-air screener on DVD in the States). Sorkin has admitted that this is the most personal show he has written - there are many references through characters and situations to events from his own life, including problems he had with cocaine some years ago. There's been plenty of on-line chat about the show as a kind of roman à clef, picking out the obvious and not-so-obvious references to real-life persons and situations dotted throughout. One of the most often commented on is the character played by Sarah Paulson, a practising Christian and former girlfriend of Matthew Perry's character (the stand-in for Sorkin) - based, quite evidently, on Sorkin's real-life former girlfriend Kristin Chenoweth. It'll be interesting seeing how Sorkin handles the religious elements arising from having a sincere believer as a major character. It might be a stretch for him to feel sympathy for that kind of belief; but then there have been worse spurs to dramatic invention.
Anyway, onto the Mormon link. The show's set-up in the pilot, put simply, is that hotshot writer/director team Matt Albie and Danny Tripp are called in to "save" a show after the former producer performs an act of career suicide live on television. The other shoe to drop is that the pair had been working on a film project, when it suddenly ran aground after Danny failed a drug test (cocaine). The pilot episode does not allude to the subject matter of the film at all, but I understand that the second episode contains a fleeting reference to the film being about the life of Nikola Tesla.
This piqued my interest at once. I know at least a little bit about Tesla - early 20th century inventor, electrical pioneer and sometime cult science figure - but he seemed an odd kind of person to namecheck, as there was no obvious connection with anything we knew about the characters so far. It was almost as though the film had been a documentary about whelk-farming or something equally obscure.
A little digging on the internet found the answer. It appears that Nikola Tesla is the situational stand-in for none other than Utah's (and Idaho's) very own Philo T. Farnsworth, another early 20th century inventor. And the subject of an aborted film project by Sorkin and director-collaborator Thomas Schlamme that was first announced in 2004:
"'The Farnsworth Invention' tells the story of Philo Farnsworth, a boy genius from Rigby, Idaho who, at 22, 'invented television only to become involved in an all or nothing battle with David Sarnoff, the young president of RCA and America's first communications mogul'. [Thomas] Schlamme described the movie as 'a classic American tale driven by the conflict between a Mormon farmer and a Russian immigrant over the ownership of the most influential invention of the 20th Century.'"
Although the film has been cancelled, Sorkin has reportedly adapted the script as a play, to be produced at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in early 2007. Although I will have zero chance of seeing the play, I'd be most curious to hear if anyone in San Diego is able to catch it when it premieres. And of course, I am even more intrigued to learn how it might compare to the similarly themed play _A Love Affair with Electrons_ by our very own Eric Samuelsen. Eric, are you still there? Are you likely to schlepp it out to San Diego for a gander?
Jason Covell
Sydney, Australia
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