The San Francisco call., 1897-04-13
GEORGIA CAYVAN
PLAYS A RUSTIC
The Blooming Actress in
Squire Kate" at the
Columbia.
Otis Skinner Proves to Be a
Otis Skinner Proves to Be a
New and Successful
Richard III.
"Called Back" Revived at the AlcR.
Ear" The Lily of Killarney"
at the Tivoli.

Georgia Cayvan, buxom and blooming g
as ever, made her appearance at the Column
bia Theater last night and was greeted by
large audience, which showed much
more appreciation for her acting than for
the pastoral drama in four acts, by Robert
Buchanan, in which she played.
Squire Kate" is one of those dramas oi
bucolic life with which ''The County
Fair" 1.-THE Old Homestead" ashore
Acres" ETC., have rendered the public
almost fatally familiar. Theater-goers
have almost learned to dread the sight oil
farm kitchen, for they know that it por-
tends cooking; SO when the curtain went
up on the first act, showing a rustic
kitchen interior, every one felt dire FORE
bodings, which settled down into gloom
when buxom Miss Cayvan rolled up her
sleeves and began to make pastry.
However, people breathed again when
they found the realism of"Squire Kate'was
not to be carried to the extent of baking
the pastry In stage oven, to be prese ntly
consumed before the eyes of the audience,
like the turkey in "Shore Acres"
The scene of the drama is laid either in
England or Scotland. where they have
not reached the "Snore Acres" stage OF
realism.
The first two acts of esquire Kate" have
little to distinguish them from the COM
monplace run of rural plays; there are
some pretty sentiments expressed in
pretty pastoral surroundings, and the ac-
tion drags little.
Toward the end of the third act there is
thrilling scene for the star, to which she
does full. justice, and the fourth act has
plenty of action, though the audience has
not much difficulty in foreseeilg how it
will all end.
Miss Cayvan's strong scene occurs in
the hay field. Squire Kate who has
toiled and worked and worried to bring
up her little sister Hetty like a lady. is
suddenly left fortune. "Gaffer" Kings
ley, the miser of the village, asks her hand
for his stepson. George Heathcote and
Kate, who loves the young man, Joy fully
accepts what she fondly believes is an
offer from George.
As she leans over the gate in the glow
of the sunset Kate sees her sister and
George together in the bayfield,, hears
Georges words of love and realizes that it
is Hetty that George loves and not her.
When the lovers part Kate turns on
Hetty and upbraids her almost tragi-
cally for winning away the man she loves.
III your hands are white it is because l
have toiled and grown old to make them
So"
The reproaches culminate in a scene
falls, faintIng, to the ground.
All through the play Miss Cayvan acted
Kate as rustic. but cleverly steered clear
of uncouthness. In the scene at the gate
she was strongly pathetic and passionate
without vergIng on the dangerous border
line OF melodrama. The curtain calls she
received at the end of this bit of acting
showed the appreciation of the audience.
Miss Cayvan has evidently studied the
local coloring of Squire Kate" in the
British Isles; the very willow pattern
dishes in the kitchen show it. The girls
working in the hay field is another bit of
local coloring which is un-American.
The play is wholesome and pretty and
the characters are not borrowed, but
Squire Kate" might he more exciting.
The company supporting the star is a
good, all-round one. Worthy of special
mention was the Hetty of Miss Mary
Jerroid and the "Gaffer" Kingsley of
George Woodward. William Hubert was
good in the role of Scotch shepherd and
Albert Brown was touchingly realistic as
u tax collector, who went ona gifted ged
Jag" because the heiress would not give
him her hand and fortune.