The ‘Finks’ era at Rogue Machine

What: The shadow of the House Un-American Activities Committee falls across the marriage of a rising comic and an actress-activist in early 1950s New York.

Why this? The husband and wife in Joe Gilford’s “Finks” are fictionalized versions of his parents, Jack and Madeline Gilford. Jack you might remember as the originator of Hysterium in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and Herr Schultz in “Cabaret” or as Bernie Lefkowitz in the movie “Cocoon.” Madeline also acted and, at the time they met, was organizing fundraisers for progressive causes. She raised money for global cooperation, fair labor, that sort of thing; certainly none of it communist, the younger Gilford says. A schism of belief is wider in the play than in real life, the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based playwright adds, but he wanted to show how the era could cause divides to gape open even within households. Most of all, he wants to convey the “fear and paranoia, betrayal and distrust, and the arbitrary absurdity” of the communist scare. “It was very Kafkaesque.” The couple are portrayed in Rogue Machine’s Los Angeles premiere by husband and wife French Stewart (“3rd Rock From the Sun”) and Vanessa Claire Stewart (Keely Smith in the small-stage sensation “Louis & Keely: Live at the Sahara”). The staging is by Broadway/film/TV director Michael Pressman, a friend of the playwright’s since boyhood and fellow child of the blacklist.

Rogue Machine at Electric Lodge, 1416 Electric Ave., Venice. 8 p.m. Fridays, 3 p.m. Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays (some exceptions); ends Dec. 30. $40. (855) 585-5185, rogue machinetheatre.com