A Novel Storyteller

Have Shows ... Will Travel. That’s a headline from Shows to Go, a brochure for the one-woman shows of award-winning actress Barbara Bates Smith. 

Indeed, Smith is often on the road in western North Carolina, across the Southeast and beyond. A resident of Clyde, Smith has created and performed her own stage adaptations of novels and stories for the past 21 years, portraying female characters created by North Carolina authors, bringing them to life in all their spunk, charm and humor. Audiences have seen her play “Ellen Foster” (from the book by Kay Gibbons), Ivy Rowe (from Fair and Tender Ladies) and Molly Petree (from On Agate Hill), and the grandmother from Fred Chappell’s I Am One Of You Forever. 

It all began in 1988 when novelist Lee Smith published Fair and Tender Ladies. The two Smiths had met a few years earlier and became friends. The actress was instantly drawn to the novel’s main character, Ivy Rowe, a young woman who grows up in the mountains and never leaves. Barbara asked Lee’s permission to do a stage adaptation. 

“When Barbara first approached me,” Lee Smith later wrote, “I told her she was crazy. After all, this is a novel about writing; it’s told in the form of letters. But it’s impossible to say ‘no’ to Barbara, who is even gutsier than … Ivy Rowe. I finally gave in. The result has been one of the great joys of my life. Barbara is Ivy Rowe.”

The first performance was given at Grundy High School in Lee Smith’s hometown in Virginia, and then Barbara took it to an Off-Broadway theater. 

“That was a challenge,” Barbara said. “In New York, their attitude was ‘show me.’ But I knew I had something good because it was Lee Smith’s material.”  

More than 600 performances later — some as far away as Edinburgh, Scotland — she still relishes the role and says there’s something in her that resonates with Ivy Rowe, something that is inspired by her as well. 

“I get a deep satisfaction from playing her and other Lee Smith characters,” Barbara said. “Ivy Rowe grounds me and lifts me up — her resilience and the way she looks life in the face and carries on. I’m sometimes teased about moving to the mountains and trying to become them.” 

Looking Life in the Face

There have been times in her career when Barbara has needed lifting up, when fiction came eerily close to reality. In 2001, she played Professor Vivian Bearing, the main character in Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Wit,” about a woman dying of ovarian cancer. Several weeks before the last performance at Haywood Arts Regional Theatre in Waynesville, Barbara was diagnosed with breast cancer. 

Her response, after finishing the run of the play, was to look life in the face. Once again, she adapted a story for a performance, but this time it was her own story and that of countless other cancer victims. With the help of her oncologist, Dr. Eric Kuehn of Asheville, Barbara created a stage presentation. “The C-Word,” offered her own experiences with cancer to open a dialogue among caregivers, chaplains, and hospital personnel about better understanding patients’ needs. “The C-Word” has been presented as a public service program to large audiences at health care conferences, staff development programs for hospitals, and cancer survivor events across the country.

Two years later, as strong as ever, Barbara earned a Best Actress Award at the Southeastern Theatre Conference for her role in the play, “Eleemosynary.” She’s also performed in the world premiere of Horton Foote’s “Talking Pictures.”

Wherever Smith’s shows are presented, to keep them portable, the staging is basic. The set and props typically consist of items like a few stools, hats, scarves, an apron, and a book or two. This puts the pressure on the actress to fully create each character. In the course of On Agate Hill, for example, she transforms from a small girl to a middle-aged headmistress to a young school teacher — all in the course of a few minutes.   

But she’s not alone on stage.

Since 1999, Jeff Sebens has provided musical accompaniment for many of Smith’s productions, usually on hammered dulcimer, lap dulcimer, and banjo. The two met near Sebens’ home in southern Virginia when Barbara was performing at the Cherry Orchard Theater. The play was “Ivy Rowe,” and Sebens says as he watched the show, he was convinced that live music would enhance the production. When the two talked afterwards, the actress, who plays several instruments including lap dulcimer, said she had been thinking the very same thing. They decided to collaborate, and when the first opportunity presented itself (a version of Frank Levering’s play, “The Emerald Ghost”), they were so pleased with the result they’ve worked together on Smith’s adaptations ever since.

Sebens, who is originally a student of classical music, played and taught French horn, and has worked both on stage and as an orchestra pit musician. In 1980, he discovered the hammered dulcimer and began to play, build and sell the instruments. Since then he’s immersed himself in traditional mountain music. In his collaborations with Barbara, he chooses the music for a given production and decides where it can be used most effectively.

“Music during scene changes helps hold the mood and avoid dead space,” he explained, adding that it can also be used to deepen emotions on stage. “Barbara feels that the musical underscoring empowers her acting as well, helping her reach a greater depth of character — and, of course, a little pre-show music helps set the mood.” 

Music can also heighten the effect of silence, and that, he says, can help set a particular mood or highlight a subtle meaning.

On Agate Hill and Together We Read

In 2006, Lee Smith published her most recent novel, On Agate Hill, and Barbara Smith was immediately taken with its main character, Molly Petree, an orphan growing up on a ravaged North Carolina plantation in the wake of the Civil War. In a story told through letters, diaries, and court documents, Molly describes herself at age 13 as “a spitfire and a burden” who wants to “live as hard as I can in this world … I want to live so hard and love so much I will use myself all the way up like a candle.” She even declares she wants a “demon lover.” 

“Molly, like Ivy Rowe, has just enough ‘badness’ to draw me in,” said Barbara. She soon found herself adapting the novel for the stage, choosing first the passages that most appealed to her, then working out which others would best complete the story for an audience that wouldn’t necessarily have read the book — no small task, since there were multiple characters to portray. Once again, Lee agreed to the project.

At about the same time, Together We Read, a Western North Carolina literacy program chose On Agate Hill for its 2007 season. Each year, Together We Read selects one book with a regional interest and encourages readers to read and discuss it across the region. Together We Read Director Rob Neufeld got wind of Barbara Smith’s dramatic adaptation of the novel and asked her to be a part of the program. The stage version of “On Agate Hill” premiered in August 2007 at Haywood Arts Regional Theatre. Sebens, once again, chose the music, and this time wrote original compositions to accompany the play. He also sings in this production. They have performed it more than 20 times and with many more performances scheduled across the Southeast in 2008.

“Lee Smith has asked me, ‘Don’t you ever get tired of doing this?’” Barbara recalled. “But I don’t; I love very minute of it. 

“Lee says she’s been told that when she wants to empower her women characters, she sends them to the mountains,” Barbara added. “Perhaps I am trying to emulate them.”

And despite the number of times she portrays the characters, she never takes the novelist’s writing for granted. 

“I appreciate her skillfulness every time,” Barbara declared. “And beyond that, her generosity in turning [this material] over to me. I am most grateful to her.” 

Local Connections

In addition to Lee Smith and Jeff Sebens, Barbara credits Suzanne Tinsley, a veteran actress and director with HART and with whom she has worked on many projects. Tinsley’s skillful direction was an integral part of the development of “On Agate Hill.” 

“She has been a huge help — I’m extremely fortunate to have found her,” Smith said. 

Smith has, in turn, shared her success with HART. The proceeds from the August 2007 premier of “On Agate Hill” benefited HART, which was celebrating its tenth anniversary. Coincidentally, 2007 was also the tenth anniversary of Smith’s move to the North Carolina mountains.

One thing she knows for sure: she is busier than she’s ever been. With show bookings packed into every month of 2008 and beyond, her mountain women characters are taking her where she wants to go. 

“It’s everything I love to do,” she says. “I’m having a good time.”

For more information on Barbara Bates Smith, her stage productions, and performance schedule, visit www.barbarabatessmith.com.