Wary Asians on a Theme: Dramatising in the Near North l Australian theatre in Asia
b"Toby Leon reads an article Alex Buzo wrote for Quadrant Magazine in 2004. It\\u2019s called \\u2018Wary Asians on a Theme: Dramatising in the Near North\\u2019 and unpacks the cultural complexities that Buzo encountered when presenting his work in Asia - from India, to Malaysia and Indonesia too - seeing the reactions from audiences, reading local critics\\u2019 appraisals of his plays, listening to the directors\\u2019 choices about his characters motivation and truth, then trying to make those same choices himself when he directed his play Pacific Union in Jakarta. And of course the piece is brimming with Alex\\u2019s insight and humour, both just as sharp as each other.--Alex Buzo was born in Sydney and educated at the University of NSW. In the late 1960s his early plays\\xa0Norm and Ahmed,\\xa0Rooted\\xa0and\\xa0The Front Room Boys\\xa0pioneered a revival of Australian theatre.Macquarie\\xa0and other historical plays such as\\xa0Big River\\xa0and\\xa0Pacific Union\\xa0helped to popularise the themes of our individual and national maturity. Buzo's books\\xa0Tautology,\\xa0The Longest Game,\\xa0The Young Person's Guide to the Theatre\\xa0and\\xa0A Dictionary of the Almost Obvious\\xa0confirm his reputation as an important recorder of the modern Australian idiom."