Fair Use

An exploration of the controversy surrounding Wallace Stegner’s use of the life and writing of 19th century author and illustrator Mary Hallock Foote in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Angle of Repose.

“…A memorable and remarkable work by a gifted artist…”

Reviews

…Fair Use is good theater, and theater companies are encouraged to make it available to a wider audience. The ensuing discussion of literary ethics can only help prevent such literary “borrowing” in the future.

The Sacramento Bee

A great deal is going on in this ambitious new play by Nevada County writer and actress Sands Hall. On one level, the play explores the considerable borrowing by novelist Wallace Stegner—an icon of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s—in his Pulitzer-winning novel Angle of Repose.

Many reviewers complimented the authenticity of the voice of the novel’s leading female character. As it turns out, in creating that character, Stegner borrowed long passages—sometimes word for word—from letters of Mary Hallock Foote, a writer and illustrator who eventually settled in Grass Valley. Stegner also fictionalized any number of scenes drawn from Foote’s autobiography. But Stegner didn’t disclose the borrowing of Foote’s writing.

In the process of teasing out this story, the play becomes a celebration of Foote’s own life and work… In addition, Hall muses on the creative process in which all writers draw on the lives and experiences of others in their novels and plays.

Multiple levels of reality and fantasy and overlapping characters and plotlines make this a play that asks for a high level of attentiveness… There is a considerable payoff as the story develops—portions of the play’s second half are breathtakingly beautiful.
This big ambitious play is a feast, with a broad view and savvy, intelligent perspective on life and history, literature and art, marriage and more.

Sacramento News and Review

In a remarkable and haunting first play…Sands Hall dashes an idol to the ground with almost biblical righteousness – and then weeps over the shards. But then is Hall delivering the blow? Or is it a character coyly titled, “Playwright?”

Although Hall is an accomplished actor and director, as well as a novelist, this is her first play. What’s remarkable is its intricacy and almost symphonic interplay among characters, both real and imaginary, past blending with present, plain language and poetic eloquence…

… a memorable and remarkable work by a gifted artist…

Village Life

A literary icon was brought to his knees Friday night in The Foothill Theatre Company’s world premiere of Sands Hall’s dense work about artistic appropriation. The play examines Wallace Stegner’s alleged misuse of Grass Valley writer Mary Hallock Foote’s letters and reminiscences in 1971 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Angle of Repose.

The play’s protagonists are Stegner, the well-known writer, and a fictional playwright who is trying to restore Foote’s true legacy. Stegner is accused of both misrepresenting Foote in his novel and, worse, passing off Foote’s own observations about the land she traveled and lived in as his own work.

…leaves a viewer with the greatest appreciation for Foote as a writer, illustrator and an extraordinary woman who kept her family together through remarkable circumstances.

The Sacramento Bee, Scene

‘The Ways of Fiction are Devious Indeed’

Read Sands’ award-winning essay from ALTA Journal, “The Ways of Fiction Are Devious Indeed,” which presents the controversy her play FAIR USE explores

And here’s an ALTA LIVE conversation between Sands Hall and ALTA editor Mary Melton that further explores this controversy.

Dramatis Personae

MHF (Mary Hallock Foote): In the process of writing her memoirs, as well as letters to her friend Helena, she watches her life unfold. There are two versions of that life: a fictionalized version written by WS, and a more “precise” version (albeit also interpreted) by PLAYWRIGHT. MHF often comments and corrects.

WS: An extremely well-known and beloved American author. A novel he’s written is based on a great deal of Foote’s life, and also borrows freely from her memoirs and letters.

Playwright: A successful dramatist, she is in the midst of writing a play in which she attempts to present a fair perspective of Foote’s life, as well as WS’ possible reasons for changing that life. She has a husband, Skip, from whom she is estranged, and a six-year-old daughter, Emily. She and Emily are currently living at HISTORIAN’s house.

Historian: Playwright’s father, he’s a retired University professor-an expert on nineteenth century Western lore and a writer of non-fiction, a man well-known and respected in his field. The only person “real” for him is PLAYWRIGHT; he does not interact with any other character. He reads constantly; often his reading material is drafts of his daughter’s play.

Mary/Susan The younger Mary Hallock Foote, as well as her fictional counterpart, Susan Burling Ward. Raised as Quakers in the mid-1800’s, both women study art in New York, and join their engineering husbands in their endeavors throughout the Far West. Mary (more than Susan) is a respected illustrator and author of novels, articles, and stories; she often keeps her family-three children, a governess, various help, and husband-financially afloat with her work.

Arthur/Oliver (A.D.): Arthur deWint Foote and his fictional counterpart, Oliver Ward. Talented, often prescient engineers, their dreams and schemes seldom bring them immediate recognition or success. Integrity matched with stubbornness often get in their ways. These qualities in Oliver make him somewhat of a romantic ideal; in Arthur they are often simply maddening.

Note: Mary/Susan and Arthur/Oliver exist only in the PLAYWRIGHT’s mind—as does WS and, to a lesser degree, MHF. They are always onstage, and, as the play begins, they are “tidy,” performing the scenes she is writing. But as WS begins to butt in to correct his scenes, as they are asked to move between his version and PLAYWRIGHT’s, they take on specific personalities.

Original Production

The Foothill Theatre Company
Nevada City, California

Written By: Sands Hall
Philip Charles Sneed, Artistic Director
Director: Lynne Collins
Set Design: Arthur R. Rotch
Lighting Design: Les Solomon
Costume Design: Clare Henkel
Original Music: Tim Orr
Stage Manager: Amy Frank

Cast

MHF: Sands Hall*
WS: Philip Charles Sneed*
Playwright: Carolyn Howarth*
Historian: David Silberman*
Mary/Susan: Eowyn Mader
Arthur/Oliver: Gary Alan Wright*
Actor One: Karyn Casl
Actor Two: John Brett
Actor Three: Vince Tycer

*Member: Actor’s Equity Association

Excerpt

ACT I: EIGHT

HISTORIAN (crossing into the kitchen): Another crackpot idea you’ve inserted into this play of yours. Stegner was not a misogynist.

PLAYWRIGHT: Read his books!

HISTORIAN (amused): I have. And I’ve been thinking. I bet Wally checked into fair use.

PLAYWRIGHT: What do you mean, “fair use?”

HISTORIAN: A copyright term. Folsom vs. March, 1841. Justice Storey.

PLAYWRIGHT: Is there anything you don’t know?

HISTORIAN: When one works with historical documents, one has to know one’s copyright law, and I bet Stegner knew it better than I do. Fair Use. “The guarantee of breathing space at the heart of copyright.” Campbell. You must take into consideration how much is used in relation to the whole-

PLAYWRIGHT: Even his adulatory biographer, Jackson Benson, admits Mary Hallock Foote’s letters compose over ten percent of the manuscript. Do the math: that’s sixty out of six hundred pages written by someone else! And that’s just the letters. Benson never mentions the use of Mary’s Reminiscences. They’re another thirty percent of the manuscript-at least. (HISTORIAN shrugs.) Dad! He made money off her work!

HISTORIAN: Commerciality. That’s another aspect of Fair Use, all right. But aren’t you doing the same thing? Aren’t there words of Stegner’s in this play you’re writing?

PLAYWRIGHT: Most of them were hers to start with.

HISTORIAN: You’ve put the guy in a wheelchair. Wasn’t the narrator of the novel- what’s his name?

PLAYWRIGHT: Lyman Ward.

HISTORIAN: Isn’t he in a wheelchair?

PLAYWRIGHT: WS is not meant to be Lyman Ward.

HISTORIAN: But it’s clear he’s meant to be Wallace Stegner.

PLAYWRIGHT (disingenuous): Now why on earth would you think WS is meant to be Stegner? His name is Waldo Strichinine. Woobedo Sczherazade. He’s WS.

HISTORIAN: When you get sarcastic like that you remind me most unpleasantly of your mother.

PLAYWRIGHT (finding a quote): Do you know what Stegner tells Richard Etulain in that book of interviews you gave me? “As far as I’m concerned,” he says, “the Mary Hallock Foote stuff had the same function as raw material, broken rocks out of which I could make any kind of wall I wanted to.” So- Stegner’s “stuff” is my “raw material.” The “broken rocks” out of which I can make the wall I want to. He turned Mary into “Susan,” a mewling, whining, narrow-minded little bigot, who hated her life, resented her husband-

HISTORIAN: Calm down! Why are you so angry-

PLAYWRIGHT: -none of which is the person I see when I read the Rems, or her wonderful letters. I see someone struggling with choices, with life turning out to be so very different than what she’d expected. Or dreamed of. (Her voice quivers.) He’s so dismissive, disdainful. Of women.

HISTORIAN: Wally adored his wife! His mother was an inspiration to him all his life. And you are not a reliable source for this perspective, dear.

PLAYWRIGHT: And why is my perspective any less reliable than your big white patriarchal one?

HISTORIAN: Because- (He gives up.) Read his first novel, Big Rock Candy Mountain. It’s heartbreakingly autobiographical. Terrible childhood. Awful father. Tearing all over the West, dragging his family along, looking for a fast way to make a buck. Digging for gold in Alaska, bootlegging in Sasketchawan, running a saloon in Salt Lake City-of all places. (They share a laugh; PLAYWRIGHT takes a note.) Yet in spite of dire poverty, his mother found a way to get Wally books-a piano!-nurtured him in the face of his father’s contempt. Years later his dad shot himself-

PLAYWRIGHT: Shot himself? (She takes another note.)

HISTORIAN -first killing the woman he was shacking up with. Most of this is in that first novel: the man is the destroyer, the wife (his highest compliment) is patient, forbearing.

PLAYWRIGHT: “Patient?” “Forbearing!” As I won’t be. Oh, Mother was-until she finally left you for someone who’d love her, who’d pay attention to-

HISTORIAN: That’s enough!