The Bells (play)

The Bells is a play in three acts by Leopold Davis Lewis which was one of the greatest successes of the British actor Henry Irving. The play opened on 25 November 1871 at the Lyceum Theatre in London and initially ran for 151 performances. Irving was to stage the play repeatedly throughout his career, playing the role of Mathias for the last time the night before his death in 1905.

The Bells is a translation by Leopold Lewis of the 1867 play Le Juif Polonais (The Polish Jew) by Erckmann-Chatrian. The Erckmann-Chatrian play was also adapted into an opera of the same name in three acts by Camille Erlanger, composed to a libretto by Henri Cain.

In 1871, Irving began his association with the Lyceum Theatre with an engagement under the management of Hezekiah Bateman. The fortunes of the house were at a low ebb when the tide was turned by Irving's sudden success as Mathias in The Bells, a property which Irving had found for himself. Bateman had been looking for a leading man when he saw Irving in a play, and the two discussed terms and possible roles for Irving, including a new version of The Polish Jew, a play about a man haunted by a murder he has committed. The Lyceum Theatre season opened in September 1871, and the first two plays were box office failures. By late October Bateman was facing financial ruin. Again Irving urged him to stage The Polish Jew, convinced that the play would be a dramatic and financial success. An unsuccessful version of the play was running at the Royal Alfred Theatre in Marylebone to meagre audiences, which failed to convince Bateman that another version could be a success; but Irving persuaded him and gave him a copy of The Bells, by Leopold Lewis.

The opening night of The Bells on 25 November 1871 was held before a small audience, and during the performance a woman fainted in the stalls. The audience sat in stunned silence at the end of the play. However, they then gave the play, and Irving's performance, a great ovation.

...
Wikipedia