Irving as Mathias in “The Bells” London Stereoscopic Company, photo.

The inspiration for Theresa Rebeck’s play The Bells was Leopold Lewis’s nineteenth-century melodrama of the same name, which was itself an adaptation of the French play Le Juif Polonais, by Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian. This story was made famous by the British actor-manager Sir Henry Irving, who made his name in his 1871 performance in the role of Mathias. Lewis’s play is set in Alsace, not the Alaskan frontier, but as in Rebeck’s play a blizzard rages outside Mathias’s inn as he is forced to confront a crime from his past, and the themes of guilt, conscience, and justice lie at its core. Irving became particularly known for his work in “realistic” melodramas like The Bells, which called for a more psychological approach to character than was prevalent at the time, and in Irving’s obituary The Strand Magazine noted that this production of The Bells “restored the fortunes of the theatre and marked a turning-point in the history of English drama.”