The Rose of the Rancho

Rose of the Rancho, The (1906), a play by David Belasco and Richard Walton Tully. [ Belasco Theatre, 327 perf.] Lawless Americans are seizing Spanish land in California and, if necessary, killing the Spaniards who own the property and have developed it. Kearney (Charles Richman) has been sent from Washington to investigate matters and has fallen in love with Juanita (Frances Starr), the half‐American daughter of one of the old Spanish landowners, who loves Kearney, rejecting family pleas to marry a Spaniard. Her family's property is being menaced by the vicious Kinkaid (John W. Cope), who succeeds in making it appear that Kearney is helping him seize the land. This turns Juanita against Kearney for the moment, but when the truth comes out, she is free to marry him. The production was one of producer Belasco's many triumphs of theatricality—that is, of brilliantly detailed production and clever appeal to immediate emotion—over form and substance.