Peter Goldsworthy’s novella, Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam, a meditation on love and grief, was first published in 1993. It’s been given a smart stage adaptation by writer and actor Steve Rodgers, whose version premiered at the National Theatre of Parramatta last year in a production by Darren Yap. That production is now playing at Belvoir, and it’s not difficult to see why its initial run was received so warmly.

Belvoir’s Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam. Photo © Brett Boardman

Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam is a window into the life of the Pollards, a tight-knit family easy to love. There’s dad Richard (Matthew Whittet), mum Linda (Emma Jackson), and their 12-year-old son Ben (Liam Nunan) and 10-year-old daughter Emma (Grace Truman). If total domestic bliss seems to just elude them, it’s the result of nothing more serious than mum and dad’s quiet but persistent striving for it.

With a commendable level of economy, we’re shown how they’ve gradually become an almost hermetically sealed foursome, with a seeming absence of much extended family or friends. They even do away with their television in an understandable attempt to avoid...