Patrick White, celebrated for his contributions to literature as Australia’s premier novelist and recipient of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Literature, was also a pioneering playwright. His dramatic journey began in the early 1930s, though his initial ventures into playwriting—comprising drawing-room comedies, sketches, and naturalistic plays—remain largely undocumented. These early works, despite their obscurity, underscore White's inherent interest in theater, a passion that later infused the poetic dialogue of his novels. His theatrical debut with The Ham Funeral, penned between 1946 and 1947 but not staged until 1961, marked a defining moment for Australian drama. This production by the Adelaide University Theatre Guild was a significant milestone, having been previously rejected by both the Elizabethan Theatre Trust and the Board of Governors of the Adelaide Festival.

White's plays represented a departure from the naturalistic theater popular at the time. Rather than conforming to this trend, he embraced expressionism and symbolism, a stylistic choice that would become the hallmark of his work. This new dramatic language continued in his subsequent plays: The Season at Sarsaparilla (premiered in 1962), A Cheery Soul (1963), and Night on Bald Mountain (1963). Together, these plays, along with The Ham Funeral, were published collectively as Four Plays in 1965, showcasing a cohesive thematic and technical vision consistent with his novels.

While expressionism and symbolic staging were innovative in the context of Australian theater, White's work was nevertheless rooted in the broader Western dramatic tradition. Influences such as Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg are evident, and White would have been familiar with the experimental endeavors of W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, which themselves drew from Bertolt Brecht’s revolutionary techniques. The prologue’s direct address to the audience in The Ham Funeral is overtly Brechtian, underscoring this influence. Additionally, parallels can be drawn to Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie, where the autobiographical poet/narrator Tom similarly engages the audience within a "memory play," a concept resonant with White’s theatrical innovations.

The Ham Funeral not only altered the trajectory of Australian drama but also solidified White's unique blend of form and content. This fusion is evident not only in his early works but also in later plays like Signal Driver (premiered in 1982 and published in 1983), which closely aligns with the thematic and stylistic elements of his earlier productions. Through these works, White established a distinctive voice in theater that continues to influence Australian drama, marrying profound thematic exploration with innovative dramatic techniques.