estimated 20 million people, and William Jennings Bryan claimed it was "the greatest play on stage when measured by its religious tone and more effect." Its popularity introduced the theater to a new audience, "many of them devout churchgoers who'd previously been suspicious of the stage." The key spectacle of the show recreated the chariot race with live horses and real chariots running on treadmills with a rotating backdrop. Its elaborate set and staging came at a time "when theatre was yearning to be cinema." After Wallace saw the elaborate stage sets, he exclaimed, "My God. Did I set all of this in motion?" When the play was produced in London in 1902, The Era's drama critic described how the chariot race was achieved with "four great cradles" long and wide, that moved "back and front on railways", while horses secured with invisible steel cable traces galloped on treadmills towards the audience. The horses also drove the movement of a vast cyclorama backdrop, which revolved in the opposite direction to create an illusion of rapid speed. Electric rubber rollers spun the chariot wheels, while fans created clouds of dust. The production had imported 30 tons of stage equipment from the United States, employed a cast of more than 100, and featured sets with fountains, palm trees, and the sinking of a Roman galley. A critic for The Illustrated London News described the London production in 1902 as "a marvel of stage-illusion" that was "memorable beyond all else", while The Sketch 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." In 2009, Ben Hur Live was staged at the O2 arena on the Greenwich peninsula in London. It featured a live chariot race, gladiatorial combat, and a sea battle. The production used 46 horses, 500 tons of special sand, and 400 cast and crew. All of the show's dialogue was in Latin and Aramaic of the period, with voiceover narration. However, despite its massive staging, a critic for The Guardian remarked that it lacked the theatrical spectacle to inspire the imagination of its audience. In contrast, London's Battersea Arts Centre staged a lower-key version of Ben-Hur in 2002 that featured a limited cast of 10 and the