PANIC OVER DISEASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18460, 25 July 1923, Page 11

PANIC OVER DISEASE.

DOMINION TENDENCIES. .' I •' ~ (MR.. OSCAR, ASCHE'S VIEWS. MORE v WISDOM IN BRITAIN. ; The creator of "Chu Chin Chow," Mr. Oscar Aeche, has returned to New Zealand fatter, an "absence of 10 years, -with his Mi Eastern production, "Cairo." In ■_-. ? i course, of 'an.-interview; yesterday;, he made some interesting /comment upon the panic; tendencies of • the:Australian 'i people .''.■ as compared withthe', matter-of-fact cheerfulness . of. Londoners >in times! of crisis. His rcmrks about the" experience, of play-: ing ;in London .through the air raid : period; led up to" the subject.■ i: ; " .!•'; "When air ; raids occurred," he ':.- said, -'we had to stop the show,, lower the iron curtain, .: and get the J; people and players into the corridors,: which had all ' the windows sand-bagged. Sometimes there was a break in the • performance of; an hour, hut' the conduct of the chorus girls was typical of the attitude of the general public. - Until y a commissionaire was placed on the door to V stop them, the girls used to' rush out into the streets .to look: for shrapnel bullets as souvenirs of the visit of i the Zeppelins. After that they:used to go on the flat roof to watch the i shellsjbursting, and when the 'All clear* was \ received, they, returned cheerfully to continue the show. The only j theatre people who became panicky were Americans.' some of whom rushed away j to Maidenhead and allowed their understudies ''I to continue,; and of the London people, the only : section that got badly scared were East End foreigners. After this experience, I am surprised to see the tendency •to panic on the part of the public in- Australia-—and I" speak as an Australian-bora—-over epidemics. During the 1918 inflreriza . epidemic, Sydney became the laughing stock of Europe for its panicky precautions, which included masks. London" had as heavy a death roll in a few days as the whole of Australia for the whole- of the epidemic, but there was none of these absurd Drecautions, which pnt th'j idea of sickness , into people's heady.' Y . ...

. Value of Cheerfulness. : "The best way to keep . people well is to keep them .• cheery. The more public precautions and; regulations there are, the more danger there is of - auto-suggest:on. We all know whet a courageous individual the. Australian soldier is, yet the Australian public ire stampeded into panic by the authorities/ I don't think that •"the Dominions are governed as wisely as Britain;! A ; few days before we left Sydney .case, of plague was d ; scoveredi and the newspapers hnvc been "full of «jlague scare matter. , I should not wonder if cases of plague, are taken off ships arriving at the London docks every day, but nothinir ; is said about them because the information- would serve no good purpose.„ _■ ~ ~ _. , __ • _ _.; .■;■' "The point of view ct England was demonstrated during the air raids, and since then, during the threatened general strike, when Sir Eric Gpddcs met the theatre ; managers an asked them to carry on at all costs to aid' the morale of the people." .' To-day, all .' of us arriving by the Marama'; had our - temperature ':. taken , before jwe could land. That sort, of l thing is not, done at the London docks, "i where foreigners I arrive by the thousand* everv week, yet the general health of Britain is not bad. There should be more common sense about health administration in the Dominions." ~ , n .Discussing • stage • matters, Mr. Asche said. he did: not ; propose to attempt »ny more productions on the scale :of " Chu Chin Chow" or -'Cairo." Even in London such shows were - now " too costlv, expenses having continued to increase. In London, "Cairo'' cost £2500 a week, and preliminary costs amounted to £20.000. Ho had come to .Australia .oartlv for a holiday, but he ' had ' not had much holiday*. '-<_ //.'/' Monotony of Long Buns.

• v ; Questioned about the effect -of < a - long run, such as the five years "Chu Chin 1 Chow" -was staged in London, upon the players, : Mr. Aseho said that ; a part soon became mechanical, but then : the danger arose "of players "drying tip," otherwise forgetting their lines. -He . had never yet failed in memory on a first.night, but he had after playing a part; for three years. The re?son. was that when a part became mechanical the slightest things ' were : sufficient -to break the flow ; a strange face in J the wings/ a strange voice on the stage, a wrong intonation ■ might leave an actor at sea. V} After the five years' run he ; hsd" become : so heartily sick of "Chu Chin Chow" that ,he to>k the first opportunity of closing 'the season. "Cairo" during its nine months in London' did better business than the first nine months of its predecessor, but the health of his wife, Miss Lily ' Brayton, had broken down, and he decided not to continue it without her. She was now recovering her health', but ';'■ had been forb-'dden.to play for. another 18 months or two 1 years. '; '.■;■•; London aud : ences were the most exacting ■ in the ; world, and first niirhts with their crowds; of critics-' ?nd blase "first nighters" were something of a ! nightmare ; to a nroducer. ; If A London audience did I not: like a show, it howled; bnoed. arid , hissed. : It constantly demanded novelty. Certainly, if it.l'^ed-a 1 show, it said 'so? Tn Australia, audiences were much more lenient. If they were n e°« ! P''. thev d'd ; not • make a '<. ; demonstration. Ho was pleased to.see New, Zealand again, but the amount of travelling that had to be done was a-worry to a producer. • -•" -'; ' * ""•"