Over roast turkey and glasses of wine, modern playwrights across the western canon have mined the domestic as a vessel for the societal; the politics of their dinner tables tend to capture the concerns and anxieties of the time and place in which they are written and staged – the state of a nation. Blessed Union, Maeve Marsden’s debut play at Belvoir St Theatre as part of Sydney WorldPride, continues that tradition, while hijacking the form to queer the preoccupations at its heart.
Ruth (Danielle Cormack, from TV’s Wentworth) and Judith (Maude Davey) have been together for 30 years. Their daughter Delilah (Emma Diaz) is at university, studying law, their son Asher (Jasper Lee-Lindsay) is chafing with his Catholic high school. The family meets up for a typical Easter meal, all eggs and tofu posing as lamb (on Isabel Hudson’s smartly detailed set), but Ruth and Judith have world-changing news to share: they are separating.
It’s not the end of the world, they assure their children. They are going to process the change as a family and discover a new way of living. Besides, as old-school organisers and activists, Ruth and Judith know how to build community and forge lives outside the mainstream. They fought hard to queer marriage, maybe now they can queer divorce.
The only problem: feelings are not always as rational as politics, and it’s difficult to rise above the institution of marriage as the ramifications of ending one hit everyone hard.
Directed by Hannah Goodwin, who cradles the not-so-hidden tender heart of this comedy in her hands, Blessed Union uses the traditional family form to ask urgent questions of the WorldPride-attending, theatre-going, mainstream-left Australia: can you spin a personal and political defeat into a net win for a family? Could we ever queer an institution from the inside, or does participation within antiquated systems damage you regardless of your intentions?
Marsden’s post-postal vote comedy honours the history of queer struggle, while also poking gentle holes into assimilative community goals like marriage and joining the ranks of the upper classes. These issues are complicated by generation and race; Ruth and Judith are white but their children are biracial, experiencing the world in a different way to their mothers, without the privilege of whiteness.
These ideas, politics and social tensions are ever-present – these characters all love to share their thoughts, spout history and build a compelling argument – but they never overtake the emotional thread of the story. Marsden’s characters have a playful, performative way with words – charmingly clever and thrillingly sharp – but never at the expense of capturing an honest feeling. They are lovingly drawn, and their collective struggle with this destabilising change is never sacrificed on the altar of comedy. The loss is heart-achingly real.
Much of this critical balance is struck in the writing: Marsden’s debut play is remarkably assured and delights in words, with a real sense of fun with language driven by queer culture. But Goodwin’s direction unites jokes with emotions so deftly that a tear or an ugly truth seems to take even the characters by surprise. Her steady hand is emphasised and strengthened by Alyx Dennison’s drumbeat-driven sound design, which marches the characters towards honesty and change, whether they’re ready for it or not.
The actors, too, are a crucial part of the magic. Cormack and Davey are well-matched as a longtime couple. Even in the process of separation, the depth of their love is clear in subtle gestures and physicality. Of the two, Judith carries her grief more openly; when she unravels, desolate and spectacular, it takes your breath away. Diaz and Lee-Lindsay round out this family with warmth and sparking humour, and their sibling relationship is beautifully written and performed.
It takes a moment to adjust the ear to the family chaos of proclamations, declarations, and affable sparring – and some lines are lost to audience laughter (and you will laugh, a lot) – but it’s all so wonderfully real. Blessed Union loves a history lesson, a trade union anthem and a critique of our capitalist society, but it also honours love and heartbreak. Marriage might be broken and systems may fail us – but we can find ways, Blessed Union promises, to not fail each other.
Blessed Union is on at Belvoir St Theatre until 11 March
