Guide to the Theatre programs and related material regarding Oscar Asche, March 1899-July 2008

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Summary

Collection number:

Asche

Extent:

116 items

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Acknowledgement of use this material should refer to the Ephemera PROMPT collection.

Citation of items from this collection should include references to author's/organisation's name, date, item title, Publisher and place of publication.

Example: J.C. Williamson (Firm). Theatre Royal (Adelaide, S.A.). 1950, Gilbert Sullivan opera season [theatre program] : The gondoliers J. C. Williamson Ltd [Adelaide]

Availability:

Available

Background

Content Summary:

The PROMPT collection documents the career of Oscar Asche as actor, producer and director on the Australian and English stage. This list includes programmes, ephemera, and journal articles covering his forty year stage career. It is to be noted that the Library's holdings are incomplete and every effort is being made to add to them.

Biographical / Historical:

John Stange(r) Heiss Oscar Asche, 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.

Asche was born in Geelong, Victoria on 26 January 1871 to a Norwegian father, Thomas Asche and an Australian mother, Harriet Emma (Lily) née Trear.

He was educated at Laurel Lodge, Dandenong, and from 1884 at Melbourne Grammar School before leaving at the age of 16. From 1887 to 1890 Asche worked and travelled until he decided to enter the theatre/ He then trained in Christiana under Bjorn-Bjornson and London, making his London debut in March 1893 in Man and Woman, at the Opera Comique under the management of Arthur Dacre.

In the same year he joined the Benson Repertory Company and for eight years acted in every kind of part, from Biondello in The Taming of the Shrew and Pistol in Henry V to the King in Hamlet. While with Benson he married Lily Brayton in 1898 or 1899.

In 1902 they both worked for Herbert Beerbohn Tree, Asche playing Antinous in Phillips's Ulysses. In 1904 when they joined up with Otho Stuart, an old Bensonian, in the management of the Adelphi Theatre, putting on productions such as The Prayer of the Sword, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew and Rudolf Besier's The Virgin Goddess.

In 1907 Asche and his wife went into management of His Majesty's Theatre producing Laurence Binyon's Attila with Asche in the title role, as well as several more Shakespearian titles - particularly Othello. Between 1909 and 1910 their company toured Australia.

In 1911 he appeared at the Garrick Theatre as Hajj in a musical scena Kismet written for him by Edward Knobloch, based on an eastern tale, an oriental theme which later influenced him to write Chu Chin Chow. This ran for two years before he toured Australia a second time in 1912-1913 taking Kismet with him. After Australia he toured South Africa with the expressed purpose of dramatising B. Rider Haggard's novel A Child of the Storm presenting it unsuccessfully in London in October 1914 as Mameena.

Asche wrote the book and lyrics to Chu Chin Chow in two weeks, to a score by Frederic Norton. He also directed and starred in it playing opposite his wife Lily Brayton. It ran in London for five years breaking all records. It opened at His Majesty's Theatre on 31 August 1916 and closed there on 22 July 1921.

During this time he also directed another very successful musical The Maid of the Mountains, and also wrote Cairo, a musical modelled on Chu Chin Chow which opened in New York in 1920, and in London in 1921 – although with less success.

Asche completed a third and final Australian tour between 1922 and 1924 featuring Chu Chin Chow and Cairo as well as reviving more Shakespeare.

On his return to England he became bankrupt due to his grey hound racing, an unsuccessful Sugley Farm, and unpaid taxes. His wife helped him in his lavish, new but unsuccessful romantic musical The Good Old Days which ran one month at the Gaiety Theatre in October-November 1925. He wrote his autobiography Oscar Asche, his life (Lond., 1929) chronicling the changes from Victorian theatre to early twentieth-century cinema, as well as two novels: The Joss-Strings of Chung (Lond., 1930), Saga of Hans Hansen (Lond., 1930).

In 1932 he directed his wife in her last stage appearance and he probably appeared on stage for the last time in The Beggar's Bowl in 1933 at the Duke of York's Theatre. Although his stage career had ended, he appeared in six films between 1932 and 1936: My Lucky Star (1932), Don Quixote (1933), Two Hearts in Waltz Time (1934), Scrooge (1935), Private Secretary (1935) and Eliza Comes to Stay (1936).

Asche found success more and more difficult to achieve in his later days, and his last work as director and performer was in some of the more amateurish musical would-be spectaculars of his time such as The White Camellia, El Dorado, Kong. Ill and impoverished he re-joined his once estranged wife at Marlow, Buckinghamshire and died at Bisham of coronary thrombosis on 23rd March 1936. They had no children.A powerfully built man with a virile figure in his early years, Asche became grossly fat in old age, a factor which made him violent on stage, being criticised for his lack of tenderness and subtlety. He is remembered for his innovative Shakespearian interpretations as well as his use of lighting, particularly in Kismet. As a producer he was considered a perfectionist, and was regarded as having the vilest temper in show business but a splendid showman. Asche thought his finest work as an actor was in Othello and as a producer and manager in Chu Chin Chow.

Arrangement:

Programs in the National Library' PROMPT collection are arranged chronologically, then individually listed by performance as follows:venue; City; Name of production or performer; Date (day and month);Headline performers etc.

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