Alex Buzo had an unusual and notorious start to his career with police prosecution of his first play Norm and Ahmed (9 April 1968). This one-act midnight dialogue between an archetypal Aussie and a Pakistani student ends with Norm violently assaulting Ahmed with the words "Fuckin' boong." The actor playing Norm was prosecuted in Queensland for obscenity, and a series of celebrated court proceedings and instances of police scrutiny of productions followed. Today one might notice in the play not so much the alleged obscenity as the careful differentiation and exploration of the two characters through their characteristic uses of language and the way the racial theme is embedded in a context of associated insights into the contradictory make-up of this "typical Aussie bloke."

A series of subsequent plays produced in quick succession during the 1970s and 1980s helped Buzo to become recognized as one of the creators of the...