, 1892-02-04
MN CRINKLES LETTER
Some Sage Reflections on
Georgia Cayvan's Art.
SHE FAILED IN SQUIRE KATE"

-" ACNhF aH- y HtOAkt SAy
van is the favorite actress at the Lyceun
theater. She is a round faced, buXou
woman of perhaps thirty. Her style o.
acting is of the quiet, demurely dignileS
order when she is at her best. She strike:
you as a woman of strong personality
prim views and considerable intelligence
She is not as handsome as Mrs. kenda0
WAS twenty years ago, when London fell
in love with Madge Robertson. but her
manner reminds you Of that actress al
times. 1t is less in the similarity of ap
peararce han in similarity Of tempera
ment. Neither of them wears the actress
trade mark-that indefinite, but always
p~erceptible pronounce air. They fit the do
mestic scenes easily and gracefully, and to
see them at their best one must see them
as happy wives, not as adventuresses On
firts or coquettes or courtesans.
Mrs. Kendall has charmed the American
public by her drawing room romancea.
She seemed to have washed and bleached
each one of them until there wasn't n stain
OF carnality on them. They accepted her
as the exemplar of the safe drama that
cheered but could not inebriAte."
think Miss George Cayvan was built
for the same kin Of work. When there
fore Mr.. Frohman put her into the new
play called Squire Kate" and gave her a
role in which she had to be unnatural, un-
ANfNDAAhbAtH AhhRbAaNAf eNA NfNh 49,
she signally failed.
Nobody appeared to have looked deep
enough into the matter to see that Mr..
Frohman's loss was her gain, and that for
the actress to fail was for the woman to
triumph.
The play is an anomalous combination
OF exquisite rustic scenery and dramatic
fustian. The most ridiculous things are
done with sentimental seriousness and the
uBurrIagf u.tfpna fnEa p1ara amid fba
most delightful surroundings.
We are introduced to Squire Kate in her
own kitchen, one of those old English
kitchens which Mr.. Frohman delights to
reproduce to its minutest detail. She
moves about among her yokels the kindly
but dignifed young mistress, who has had
the responsibility Of the farm suddenly
put upon her and who has been accus-
toned to take her share OF the work uD-
co~mplainingly.
You can picture the bright group far
yourself-the men at the deal table under
the smoky rafters drinking their home
brewcd ale and chatting the maids; the
overseer. who is in love with Kate, leaning
against the great chimneypiece, moody
and r~eticent rs his eye follows the mistress
in her bustling duties, and now and then
whiting his buckthorn stick; the younger
sister, who comes in like IA moth, very
hMttl anu innocent, as MISS EHle shannon
always makes younger sisters, and eats
the plums while the squire makes the pud.
ding. You can see the hedgerows through
the broad, open easement and almost hear
the lark singing. 1t Is n delicious picture
of English rustic life in its best estate. 1t
might have been tinted by lane Austin or
sketched by Charles Reade.
But what is the story that evolves itself
on this serene and sunny cnnvasS
Let me tell you as briefly as ! can.
Squire Kate is heavily in debt. The farm
is encountered and there is a miserly old
Gcrew in the neighborhood who holds her
in his relentless grip, and is determined to
ruin her. He has a son, "A rather manly
young fellow, who is deeply in owe with
-se younger sister, and who is disguised
with his fathers sordid spirit. Squire
Kate is not aware of this attachment. She
not only loves her sister tenderly, but she
also consciously loves the young man. All
at once another old miser somewhere dies
and leaves all his wealth to Kate. She
pays off the Indebtedness on the farm and
is herself a wealthy woman. We ARE now
Mt the end Of the first act, and the lark
sings with redoubled energy.
We then proceed to the English bayfield,,
where Squire Kate in a French dress SUI
perintends the hayraking and is beset
by an opera bouffe quartet Of suitors
Among them is the Old Screw, who, now
that she is wealthy, is nXiou to have her
marry his son and tells her that the son
loves her, to her souls delight. But pres
emily she discovers that it is false and that
the young man loves her sister. And ut
that point the play goes all to pieces in the
atric Mysteries and inconceiyable mumbo-
jumbo.
In an instant the squire is converted
from a wholesome, levelheaded housewife
and prudent woman into an irresponsible
and vituperative stage hussy. AS soon as
she gets the facts into her mind she hates
her innocent sister. declares herself an
enemy Of the world and rants and raves
unrestrainedly about her unreciprocated
affection, and PUSHES OF in the night to an
old Polonius shepherd in Il lonely wood to
get a love philter or some mHndragora to
fix things up to her liking.
The most romantic Of maidc observers
of this catastrophe feels at once that the
bottom has fallen out Of the English pic
mic and that the spilled contents are
cheap melodrama. One feels a little sorry
that the wholesome Squire Kate should 50
quickly resolve herself into a superstitious
l~ovelorn maiden of the Middle Ages
There is a strong desire in the human
breast that she shall go on making pud.
ding and raking the hay and behave her
self. But no. she not only insists that the
world is n soap bubble and her doll is
stuffed with sawdust, but she proposes u
declaim it in spite of'decency and at the
slightest provocation.
Mr.. Buchanan, the author OF this play
appears TO think that the average heroins
Of the century doesn't draw much of "A line
between serenely loving and severely
hating. She either wears ashes of roses or
oil of vitriol as the mood seizes her, and
if she can't have her own sweet way witt
her emotions, she becomes in the twin
king Of AN eye a confirmed nihilist, Hel
creed is devotion or dynamite. Beware, and
love me!
Then Mr.. Buchanan having got himsel!
into this conscienceless human muddle, in
which decorum resolves itself into drugi
and character drops to inconsistency, sets
himself to work to show that all his in.
conceivable nonsense on the part of Kate
is n purely feminine spasm that is to b.
cured by n counter shock.
The counter shock is this, md mark how
narrow and theatric it is:
The old miser, who is so nxiou to have
his son marry Hates farm, perceives thai
he never will so long as the pretty sister i
in the WAY. so be goes TO the same old Po