Cooee, or Wild Days in the Australian Bush
{{Short description|1906 play by Edward William O'Sullivan}}
{{Use Australian English|date=April 2024}}
{{Infobox play
| name = Coo-ee; Or, Wild Days in the Bush
| image =
| image_size =
| caption =
| writer = Edward William O'Sullivan
| characters =
| setting = Monaro and Braidwood district in Australian outback in the 1860s
| premiere = 14 April 1906{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14765555 |title=THE HAYMARKET HIPPODROME. |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=21,250 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=14 April 1906 |accessdate=4 April 2024 |page=12 |via=National Library of Australia}}
| place = Haymarket Hippodrome, Sydney
| orig_lang = English
| subject =
| genre = Melodrama
}}
Coo-ee; Or, Wild Days in the Bush is a 1906 Australian play by Edward William O'Sullivan. It was originally performed by Edward Irham Cole's Bohemian Dramatic Company.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article164042248 |title=AMUSEMENTS. |newspaper=The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser |volume=LXXXI |issue=2319 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=18 April 1906 |accessdate=4 April 2024 |page=1028 |via=National Library of Australia}} Bruce E. Mansfield, 'O'Sullivan, Edward William (1846–1910)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/osullivan-edward-william-7931/text13803, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 4 April 2024.
The play was specifically devised as a piece of broad appeal popular theatre.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article114320805 |title="COO-EE!" |newspaper=Evening News |issue=12,123 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=18 April 1906 |accessdate=4 April 2024 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}
The play helped develop the concept of the "bush heroine" in Australian culture.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article213876690 |title=Don't Call Me Girlie |newspaper=Filmnews |volume=15 |issue=6 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=1 August 1985 |accessdate=4 April 2024 |page=15 |via=National Library of Australia}}
O'Sullivan later accused the writers of the popular 1907 melodrama The Squatter's Daughter of copying his play.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article115232841 |title=THE SQUATTER'S DAUGHTER. |newspaper=Evening News |issue=12,463 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=21 May 1907 |accessdate=4 April 2024 |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia}}
Premise
Jack Bailey is in love with Eva Braddon. The villain, Rupert Seymour, is in cahoots with Ben Hall, the Clarkes, and other notorious bushrangers. Seymour forces Eva's father to consent to marriage with his daughter until stopped by Bailey with the assistance of a faithful black, Nardoo.{{cite news |date=18 April 1906 |title=HAYMARKET HIPPODROME. |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article167205238 |accessdate=4 April 2024 |newspaper=Sydney Sportsman |location=New South Wales, Australia |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia |volume=VI |issue=299}}
Reception
The Sydney Morning Herald declared "As a melodrama "Cooee" is far ahead of many more ambitiously-staged productions, but it is reminiscent of some of them."{{cite news |date=16 April 1906 |title=THE HIPPODROME. |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28156900 |accessdate=4 April 2024 |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |location=New South Wales, Australia |page=9 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=21,251}}
The Sydney Sportsman said the play "possesses many of the good points of kindred productions, and few of their bad ones, and was voted a complete success by the intensely interested audience."
The Daily Telegraph said the play "has been carefully thought out and worked upon such lines as will point a moral, through somewhat murky atmosphere albeit, but a moral just the same."{{cite news |date=16 April 1906 |title="COOEE" AT THE HIPPODROME. |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article236826971 |accessdate=4 April 2024 |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |location=New South Wales, Australia |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=8383}}
Another review said "his play chiefly fails through its dramatic pudding being so full of sensational plums that each is passed over too quickly to be appreciated by the palate. If two or three speeches were abbreviated, some of the incidents eliminated, and the remainder more fully developed and properly led up to, this would be a very effective play. But the Hippodrome's audiences fairly revel in it, and the curtain goes down nightly on a chorus of Coo-ees, issuing from 1000 throats."{{cite news |date=21 April 1906 |title=THE STRUTTER'S PAGE. |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article102704677 |accessdate=4 April 2024 |newspaper=The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People |location=New South Wales, Australia |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia |volume=9 |issue=31}}