BOOKS

Betts' 'Ugliest Pilgrim' coming to Thalian Hall

Ben Steelman StarNews Staff
Doris Betts' short story "The Ugliest Pilgrim" is the basis for the musical "Violet," being staged by Opera House Theatre Company. (Associated Press)

It's not that often that a Tar Heel author's work appears in Thalian Hall, but Opera House Theatre Company is delivering with its production of the musical "Violet," opening Aug. 29 for a two-week run.

"Violet" is based on "The Ugliest Pilgrim," a short story from Doris Betts' 1973 collection "Beasts of the Southern Wild." Betts, who died in 1979, was the author of six novels, but "The Ugliest Pilgrim" was her most reprinted and most anthologized piece.

The story follows the adventures of Violet Karl, a young and very devout young woman from Spruce Pine. Cruelly disfigured by a childhood accident, Violet sets out for Tulsa, Okla., to be healed by a certain very famous TV evangelist. Instead, as the Opera House synopsis puts it, she finds a very different form of salvation.

Religion forms a strong undercurrent in Betts' writings. In a 1997 interview with The Christian Century, she complained that some critics missed it entirely. It was, she said, like belief in God: “If you see it, you will see it. If you don’t see it, no one can persuade you. It is not an argument. It is an overlay that you do or don’t place on things. My overlay is there.”

Born in Statesville, the daughter of mill workers, Betts was raised in the conservative Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and said the earliest influence on her writing were Bible stories: “It makes you feel that the ordinary is not ordinary.”

In high school, she wrote for the Statesville Record. She entered Women's College (now the University of North Carolina-Greensboro) where she was exposed to the poet-novelist Randall Jarrell ("Pictures From an Institution").

Betts dropped out during her junior year to get married, but before she did, she won the Mademoiselle College Fiction Contest in 1953. (She was in good company; the previous year, Sylvia Plath was the contest winner. In 1959, Joyce Carol Oates won.)

In 1966, Betts joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she taught for more than three decades; for many years, she directed the freshman English program.

Her novels include "Souls Raised from the Dead" (1994), which won a Southern Book Award, and "The Sharp Teeth of Love" (1998). Of particular interest to regional readers might be "The River to Pickle Beach" (1972), a tense domestic drama set on a remote stretch of the North Carolina coast.

Among other honors, she received the North Carolina Award for Literature and the John Dos Passos Prize. She was admitted to the N.C. Literary Hall of Fame and was chancellor of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

"The Ugliest Pilgrim" was adapted as a short film, which won an Academy Award in 1982. In 1994, composer Jeanine Tesori ("Fun Home"), adapted the story as a musical, which opened off-Broadway in 1997 and has been often revived in regional theater.

Reporter Ben Steelman can be reached at 910-343-2208 or Ben.Steelman@StarNewsOnline.com.

Want to Go?

What: "Violet," a musical based on Doris Betts' "The Ugliest Pilgrim."

When: 8 p.m. Aug. 29-Sept. 1 and Sept. 7-8, 3 p.m. Sept. 2 and Sept. 9

Where: Thalian Hall main stage, 310 Chestnut St.

Details: Presented by Opera House Theatre Company. Tickets $32.

Information: 910-632-2285.