Davy Crockett; or, be Sure You're Right, Then Go Ahead

Davy Crockett; or, be Sure You're Right, Then Go Ahead (1873), a play by Frank Murdoch. [Wood's Museum, 12 perf.] Davy Crockett ( Frank Mayo) returns to his forest home carrying a buck he has shot and bearing the news that his childhood sweetheart, Little Nell, has come back from a long stay abroad. Little Nell now calls herself by her proper name, Eleanor Vaughn ( Rosa Rand), and she brings with her, her guardian Major Hector Royston ( T. W. Keene), and her fiancé, Neil Crampton ( Harry Stewart). The travelers are headed for the estate of Neil's uncle, Oscar Crampton ( J. J. Wallace). Davy is quick to sense something is wrong. He decides to run ahead of the party and offer them the shelter of his hunting hut, since it has started to snow. The decision proves wise, for Neil has been hurt and his blood has attracted wolves. Davy singlehandedly keeps the wolves at bay, while Eleanor reads him Scott's poem of Lochinvar. When the party finally reaches old Crampton's estate, the uncle is revealed as a villain who is blackmailing Royston with forged papers and forcing his nephew to marry. Davy, like young Lochinvar, arrives to rescue his sweetheart. He takes her home and marries her, then destroys the uncle's papers. Although the play is usually set down among the major works dealing with frontier life, it is actually little more than a drawing room melodrama unfolding in the wilderness. Despite Crockett's first appearance with a deer over his shoulder, his later fending off of wolves, and dialogue such as, “Yes, this is my crib. This is where I come and bank when I'm out on a long stretch arter [sic] game,” the play could have been set elsewhere with little change. Still, the contrast of the rough and the polished, the openhearted and the venal, was underscored by the setting. Davy Crockett was first produced in Rochester, New York, in 1872 and was received coolly. However, Mayo had faith in the piece and kept rewriting it. Even its initial New York reception was reserved, but the public took to it, so Mayo was able to play it for the rest of his life, including a performance two days before his death.