Concurrent with his work in connection with the amateur presentment of the Greek tragedy Belasco had also prepared for Daniel Frohman’s stage a revival of Sardou’s “FerrÉol,” produced at the Union Square Theatre, March 21, 1876. Under the name of “The Marquis,” and under Belasco’s stage direction, it was acted at the Lyceum Theatre, by the stock company of that house, on March 18, 1889, but it proved a failure. It was withdrawn after one week, and on March 29 a revival was effected there of “The Wife,”—with the original cast, except that Louise Dillon succeeded Vida Croly as Agnes. “The Wife” ran till May 18, when the Lyceum closed for the season. Belasco, however, did not finish his work with the revival of that play. Mr. Gillette had made a drama of the novel of “Robert Elsmere,” by Mrs. Humphry Ward, and, gratified by the assistance Belasco had rendered in the vivification of “She,” he secured his services, with consent of the Lyceum management, as stage manager, to set that drama on the stage. This was accomplished, April 29, at the Union Square Theatre.

With the close of the season of 1888-’89 at the Lyceum, in May, Belasco found himself once more commissioned, in association with De Mille, to write a new play with which to open that theatre, the following season, and thus again under the painful necessity of producing a work of dramatic art not as a matter of artistic expression but under compulsion of necessity. This task seemed very formidable. He had worked hard. His health was impaired. His spirits were low. His physician had ordered that he should take a long rest. It is a good prescription, and doubtless, in most cases, it is the best that can be given; but few of the weary workers of the world can take advantage of it, and no workers are more strictly bound to incessant routine duty than those who wield the pen in service of the Theatre. In these unfavorable circumstances Belasco again repaired to the peaceful seclusion of De Mille’s home at Echo Lake, and there the two dramatists once more sought to strike a spark of inspiration into the tinder of dramatic material. The result of this confabulation was, eventually, the comedy of “The Charity Ball.”