The stage production was notable for its elaborate use of spectacle, including live horses for the famous chariot race.

Traveling versions of the production, including a national tour that ran for twenty-one years, played in the United States, Great Britain, and Australia.

[2] In 1899, following three months of negotiations, Wallace entered into agreement with theatrical producers Marc Klaw and A. L. Erlanger to adapt his novel into a stage production.

[4] Edgar Stillman Kelley composed the play's music, but it was its elaborate staging and special effects that created a life-sized visual presentation of Wallace's novel.

Critics of the three-hour-and-twenty-nine-minute performance gave it mixed reviews; however, the audience, many of whom were first-time theatergoers, packed the house.

[12] The play's twenty-one-year national tour included large venues in cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and Baltimore.

[10][13][14][15] Fans included William Jennings Bryan, who claimed it was "the greatest play on stage when measured by its religious tone and moral effect".

The horses also drove the movement of a vast cyclorama backdrop that revolved in the opposite direction to create an illusion of rapid speed.

The Sketch's critic called it "thrilling and realistic ... enough to make the fortune of any play" and noted that "the stage, which has to bear 30 tons' weight of chariots and horses, besides huge crowds, has had to be expressly strengthened and shored up".