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The Bells is set in a remote prospecting outpost in the Yukon in the waning years of the Alaskan Gold Rush. Mathias, the owner of the local tavern and the richest man in town, feels responsible for the misfits and drunks who make up the population. He does his best to keep the ragtag community alive and moderately contented by handing out free food and drink and overlooking their petty thievery. His daughter Annette is often frustrated by her father’s expansive goodwill and angry with the town for taking advantage of him; however, even she is affected by her father’s compassion and lends a hand to those in need. One day a French Canadian bounty hunter named Baptiste arrives. He catches Annette’s eye, which pleases Mathias, but when Baptiste begins asking questions about Xuifei, a Chinese prospector who disappeared eighteen years ago, Mathias’s suspicions are aroused. A set of bells given to Annette by Xuifei when she was a little girl resurfaces, and their sound begins to haunt Mathias. It soon becomes clear to Baptiste that Mathias was involved in Xuifei’s disappearance, and it is only a matter of time until the whole story is uncovered. Long-repressed memories and the ghost of Xuifei appear to Mathias as present and past collide, and the wilderness outside can no longer be kept at bay. The pressure on Mathias intensifies when one of the locals, Jim, threatens to expose him. Mathias takes Jim out in the wilderness, plies him with liquor, and leaves him there to die. Meanwhile, Baptiste sets out to retrace Xuifei’s last movements. Nearly lost in to the elements himself, Baptiste encounters Xuifei’s ghost, who demands justice and helps Baptiste to safety. Though tormented by his own mixed motives in seeking out Xuifei’s killer, Baptiste decides justice must be served and that the truth must come out. Frozen and near death, Baptiste makes it back to the tavern, as eager for Annette’s ministrations as he is to confront Mathias with evidence of Xuifei’s remains. Backed into a corner, Mathias attempts to justify his long-ago murder of Xuifei as an act of necessity: in the face of mass starvation he had not choice but to kill Xuifei and take his gold. Finally, though as his ghosts and demons overtake him, Mathias confronts the knowledge that he did it out of his own greed.
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The Play & its contents
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Plot Summary |
Drama in the Classroom
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About this production
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