Оскар Асхе: Австралиялық актер және режиссер өмірі мен шығармашылығы

19th/20th century Australian actor and director

John Stange(r) Heiss Oscar Asche (24 January 1871 – 23 March 1936), better known as Oscar Asche, was an Australian actor, director, and writer, best known for having written, directed, and acted in the record breaking musical Chu Chin Chow, both on stage and film, and for acting in, directing, or producing many Shakespeare plays and successful musicals. After being a digger, a mounted police officer and a storekeeper, Thomas Asche became a prosperous hotel keeper and publican in Melbourne and Sydney. He then went on a holiday voyage to China, and after his return to Australia was articled to an architect who died soon afterwards. A few months later, he ran away and lived in the bush for some weeks and then obtained a position as a jackaroo. He returned to his parents and obtained a position in an office, but he had now decided to become an actor and made a beginning by getting up private theatricals at his home. He travelled to Fiji and on his return his father agreed to send him to Norway to study acting. At Bergen, Asche was instructed in deportment, voice production and theatre arts. He found the Norwegian acting technique to be easy and natural. Two months later, he went to Christiania to study acting. He was fortunate in having an allowance of £10 a week from his father, but could not obtain work. In December 1892 he went to Norway again to give a Shakespeare recital, which was successful and brought him a little money.

On 25 March 1893 Asche made his first appearance on the stage, at the Opera Comique Theatre, London, as Roberts in Man and Woman.|group= n He was a good athlete and a fair cricketer. He said that he owed his place in Benson's company as much to his cricketing as to his acting abilities: the Benson company fielded a cricket team wherever it toured in the summer months. He travelled to America to repeat the role on Broadway in 1902.

In 1904 Asche became co manager with Otho Stuart of the Adelphi Theatre on a three year lease. Their productions included The Prayer of the Sword, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure, Count Hannibal (which he wrote with F. Norreys Connell) and Rudolf Besier's The Virgin Goddess. In 1906 he played King Mark in J. Comyns Carr's play Tristram and Iseult at the Adelphi Theatre, with Lily Brayton as Iseult and Matheson Lang as Tristram. On Asche's return to London in 1911, Edward Knoblock wrote the play Kismet for him, with the understanding that Asche could revise it. He shortened and partly re wrote it and produced it with much success, playing Hajj. The production ran for two years, and a successful tour in Australia followed in 1911–12, with Kismet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Antony and Cleopatra. In 1916, Asche produced his play Chu Chin Chow, music by Frederic Norton, starring himself and his wife, which ran for 2,238 performances, from 31 August 1916 to 22 July 1921. The run easily broke the existing record of 1,466 performances, set by Charley's Aunt in the 1890s. The new record stood for decades. The show drew some criticism for the ladies' scanty costumes, which Tree described as "more navel than millinery", but it was just what war weary audiences wanted. Asche played the part of Abu Hassan and confessed that "it got terribly boring going down those stairs night after night to go through the same old lines". But Asche was a perfectionist, and the performance was never allowed to get slack. Chu Chin Chow also played in New York City in 1917 and Australia in 1920. Also during the run of Chu Chin Chow, Asche directed the hit London production of The Maid of the Mountains for Robert Evett and the George Edwardes Estate, which had an outstanding run of 1,352 performances. After the success of Chu Chin Chow, Asche wrote another musical that opened on Broadway in 1920 under the name Mecca and then in London the following year under the name Cairo. In 1922, Asche visited Australia again, under contract to J. C. Williamson Ltd., and made successful appearances as Hornblower in John Galsworthy's The Skin Game, Maldonado in Pinero's Iris, his usual roles in Chu Chin Chow and Cairo, the title character in Julius Caesar, and in other Shakespeare plays.|group= n

Further successes eluded Asche as he tried to mount musicals, including The Good Old Days of England (1928), financed by his wife. was a failure. In 1933 Asche made his last stage appearance in The Beggar’s Bowl at the Duke of York's Theatre. Asche also made appearances in seven films between 1932 and 1936, including in Two Hearts in Waltz Time (1934), as the Spirit of Christmas Present in the 1935 film Scrooge, and in The Private Secretary (1935). He also wrote several books, including his autobiography, but these ventures did not solve his financial troubles. In his final years, Asche became obese, poor, argumentative and violent. He and his wife separated, but, at the end, he returned to her and died at the age of 65 in Bisham, Berkshire, of coronary thrombosis. He was buried in the riverside cemetery there. He had no children.

Asche's autobiography, Oscar Asche: His Life (1929), must be read with caution whenever figures are mentioned. He also wrote two novels: the Saga of Hans Hansen (1930), an improbable but exciting story, and The Joss Sticks of Chung (1931). His play Chu Chin Chow was published in 1931, and the vocal score of Cairo was published in 1921, but the other plays of which he was author or part author have not been printed. Among these were Mameena (1914), The Good Old Days, The Spanish Main (under the name Varco Marenes) and the libretto of Cairo.