"Charity" lost money and closed on 14 March. Its failure was disappointing to Gilbert, particularly after the success of his earlier "fairy comedies" at the Haymarket, and he grumbled that "pieces written with anything like an earnest purpose seldom seem to succeed." Charity did have a good provincial tour, and a production at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York, starring Fanny Davenport and Ada Dyas as Ruth. Augustin Daly's production at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in 1880 was not authorised by the author, and Gilbert was angry that Daly "debased" his play, adding characters and revising the text. The American courts would not issue an injunction to prohibit this, since British copyright was unenforceable in America at that time (as Gilbert and Sullivan would experience with "H.M.S. Pinafore" and their later hits).