Bless Maeve Marsden: truly.

Her debut arrives during the opening week of Sydney WorldPride at Belvoir as a scorchingly funny, deeply empathetic, politically attuned and carefully layered gift.

Centring on an all-queer non-traditional family valiantly trying to do a breakup better that the straights, it pokes fun in all the right places (including in the morally righteous side of the community) and reveals what a lifetime of ‘performing perfection’ in order to survive can do when confronted with such a chaotic, unruly, dangerous thing as love.

This may be the first play of Marsden’s, but she’s hardly outside her wheelhouse. Director of Queerstories – a project and phenomenon which curates and showcases LGBTQIA+ narratives – she’s created a vital space for marginal experiences to find exemplary form and for individuals to connect with each other and the wider world.

She’s also directed rock musicals (Lizzie, at the Hayes Theatre), satires, created and hosted podcasts, performed in critically acclaimed and internationally toured cabarets, and holds place as a respected cultural commentator. Marsden’s first stride onto theatre’s mainstage is sure-footed and promising for whatever comes next.

Directed by Hannah Goodwin (who managed humour well too in Belvoir’s Wayside Bride), Blessed Union brings together a...