I suspect we’re going to be seeing more assessments of The Farnsworth Invention like this one, as more people come away from the play wondering how much of it has any connection to anything that really happened:
In addition, I felt a little cheated to learn that a key scene in the play is a total fabrication. It’s impossible to know how much of the story really happened the way Sorkin presents it, and how much of it is embellished for dramatic purposes.
Now, let’s be fair: the play is not a complete fabrication from opening curtain to final curtain call, but there’s certainly enough "dramatic license" taken on key points that anybody who wants a history lesson is going to have to do a lot of digging. The problem, of course, is that in our culture, most people would rather sit back and be entertained for two hours and think that will suffice. Few people really care about where dramatic license might cross the line into outright mangling of the facts.
It’s just unfortunate when the entertainers think that their ability to amuse an audience is sufficient substitute for any responsibility they might have to educate as well.