The period from January to July, 1881, exhibits nothing of particular moment concerning Belasco, though, as usual, he was hard at work throughout it. “Wedded by Fate” gave place to a revival, February 1, of Daly’s version of “Leah the Forsaken,” made to introduce to the Stage a novice, Miss Clara Stuart, who paid for the privilege of appearing and whose money, like that of the extravagant McDowell, was welcome to the distressed Maguire. Beginning on February 9, George Darrell, an actor from Australia,--with whom Belasco had been associated in conjunction with Laura Alberta, at Grey’s Opera House, in 1873,--acted at the Baldwin for several weeks. During McDowell’s season and for several weeks subsequent thereto part of the Baldwin stock company performed in towns of the interior,--Belasco dividing his time between San Francisco, where he assisted Darrell, and the Baldwin company, “on the road.” Darrell opened in “Back from the Grave,” a play dealing with the important, neglected, and often misrepresented subject of spiritualism (that actor was, or, at least, bore the reputation of being, a hypnotist and a student of occult matters). This was followed on the 21st by “Four Fates,” and, on the 25th, by “Transported for Life.” John P. Smith and William A. Mestayer played at the Baldwin for three weeks, beginning April 11, in “The Tourists in a Pullman Palace Car”; Kate Claxton, supported by Charles Stevenson and making her first appearance in San Francisco, presented “The Two Orphans” there for two weeks, opening on May 9; and the company of Jarrett & Rice, in “Fun on the Bristol,” played there from May 30 to June 9, after which date the theatre was closed until July 4. It was then reopened, under the temporary management of J. H. Young, with A. D. Bradley as stage manager, and a few performances of “Emancipation” were given by The Pierreponts. Belasco, however, appears to have been occupied chiefly with his own affairs from April to July.
Even before Belasco had been reinstalled as stage manager at the Baldwin Theatre he had resumed planning another campaign of adventure to gain acceptance and position in New York, and that purpose was ever present in his mind during the year that followed his return from the Eastern venture with the Hernes in “Hearts of Oak.” He had set his heart on a success in the leading theatre of the country, Wallack’s, and he resolutely addressed himself to its achievement. Maguire had come to depend more and more on Belasco, in the labor of keeping the Baldwin Theatre open and solvent, and to him the ambitious dramatist presently turned with his plans for a play to be called “La Belle Russe.” “I felt that I had a play which would suit Wallack’s company,” he said, “and that, if I could get some of his actors to appear in it, Wallack would soon hear of it, and the task of getting a New York hearing would be much simplified. Jeffreys-Lewis