In 4.5.9 is possible to render an area. To render an area use selector:

~mgnlArea=areaName~

Examples:
http://demoauthor.magnolia-cms.com/demo-project/about/subsection-articles/article~mgnlArea=content~.html
http://demoauthor.magnolia-cms.com/demo-project~mgnlArea=stage~.html

When the area doesn't exist, whole page is rendered:
http://demoauthor.magnolia-cms.com/demo-project/about/subsection-articles/article~mgnlArea=unexistingArea~.html

Note that rendering of empty areas will output empty page.

areaName is
You can see all supported areas for Direct Area rendering when you open source code of page on author instance.
For example I can render the area stage from demo-project page:
<!-- cms:area content="website:/demo-project/stage" name="stage" ... -->
but rendering of areas without their own content nodes is not supported:
<!-- cms:area content="website:/demo-project" name="logo" ... --> (because the node website:/demo-project/logo) doesn't exists.