Belasco produced three new plays in the season of 1909-’10,--“Is Matrimony a Failure?”, “The Lily,” and “Just a Wife.” “Is Matrimony a Failure?” is a clever farce, adapted by Leo Ditrichstein from a German original, “Die Thür ins Freie,” by Oscar Blumenthal and Gustav Kadelberg. It relates to the ancient, evergreen subject of conjugal friction,--which, in this instance, seems intolerable but proves indispensable,--and it implicates ten married couples and one pair of prospective connubialists. The scene is a pleasant country town in New York. A coterie of husbands has grown restive under what is deemed to be an excessive exercise, by their wives, of matrimonial authority. A lawyer named _Paul Barton_ visits the town to settle the estate of an old Justice of the Peace, recently deceased, ascertains that the wedding ceremonies of the various couples implicated were performed by that official’s clerk, in the absence of his employer, and declares them to be illegal. The husbands decline to validate their marriages unless their wives agree to permit them greater freedom than they have enjoyed, and, leaving their homes, establish themselves at a neighboring inn,--where they soon find that, however irksome may have seemed the dominion of their wives, it is immensely preferable to the total lack of their society. More particular rehearsal of the complications, cross-purposes, and conflicts woven about this posture of circumstance would be superfluous: they were not less comic and amusing because the legal quirk upon which the original play was based is inapplicable under the law of the State of New York. The farce was exquisitely set and admirably played,--especially by that excellent light-comedian and lovable man, the late Frank Worthing,--and it enjoyed acceptance bounteous and remunerative. “Is Matrimony a Failure?” was first acted at Atlantic City, New Jersey, August 29, 1909, and, in New York, at the Belasco Theatre, on the 23d of that month,--with the following cast: THE HUSBANDS. _Skelton Perry_ Frank Worthing. _Hugh Wheeler_ W. J. Ferguson. _Frank Bolt_ James Bradbury. _Albert Rand_ Edward Langford. _Jasper Stark_ John F. Webber. _David Meek_ F. Newton Lindo. _Dr. Hoyt_ Robert Rogers. _George Wilson_ Marshall Stuart. _Lem Borden_ Gilmore Scott. _Herman Ringler_ Frank Manning. [Illustration: Photograph by White. Belasco’s Collection. NANCE O’NEILL AS _ODETTE DE MAIGNY_ AND JULIA DEAN (THE YOUNGER) AS _CHRISTIANE DE MAIGNY_, IN “THE LILY”] THE WIVES. _Fanny Perry_ Jane Cowl. _Kate Wheeler_ Louise Mackintosh. _Madge Bolt_ Anne Sutherland. _Alice Rand_ Louise Woods. _Annie Stark_ Lou Ripley. _Lucy Meek_ Gretta Vandell. _Helen Hoyt_ Blanche Yurka. _Julia Wilson_ Helen Braun. _Natalie Borden_ Julia Reinhardt. _Sadie Ringler_ Josie Morris Sullivan.