A Tangled ’50s Love Triangle Onstage in Sag Harbor

Speaking of the complicated relationships among Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, and Marilyn Monroe, Jack Canfora said that “even by Hollywood standards, it was weird.” He should know. He was speaking by phone from New York City during rehearsals for his play “Fellow Travelers,” in previews at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor starting Tuesday, which will have its world premiere when it opens on June 2.

“Fellow Travelers” opens in 1951, when Kazan and Miller, who were close friends, traveled from New York City to Los Angeles to meet with Harry Cohn, the head of production at Columbia Pictures.

Miller was an esteemed playwright hoping to gain a foothold in Hollywood and Kazan was one of the world’s leading directors, whose Broadway credits already included Miller’s “All My Sons” and “Death of a Salesman.” Kazan introduced Miller to Monroe during that trip. At the time she and Kazan, who was married, were having an affair. 

A lot happened during the next five years. In 1952, Kazan was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee and identified eight former members of the Group Theatre as Communists. That testimony cost him Miller’s friendship.

On June 21, 1956, Miller appeared before the committee and testified about his own political affiliations, but refused to name names of other alleged Communists. Five days after that hearing, he and Monroe were married.

“Fellow Travelers” spans 1951 to 1963 and covers “all the greatest hits,” according to Mr. Canfora — the hearings, Kazan and Monroe’s affair, Miller and Monroe’s marriage, the 1961 film “The Misfits,” written by Miller and starring Monroe, the breakup of their marriage, and her suicide.

“While Miller and Kazan worked together one more time after Kazan testified, many years later, their relationship was never the same,” said Scott Schwartz, the artistic director of Bay Street. Miller’s 1953 “The Crucible” not only dramatized the Salem witch trials but was also an attack on McCarthyism. “On the Waterfront,” which Kazan directed in 1954, was considered by many a defense of his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

“Fellow Travelers” deals “a lot with how some of their great works were created,” said Mr. Schwartz. “A lot of the play is about this conversation that Miller and Kazan stopped being able to have as friends but continued to have through their work.”

Mr. Schwartz cited as one strength of the play its refusal to take sides between Miller and Kazan. 

“I wanted to let the facts and the actions speak for themselves,” Mr. Canfora said. “I don’t think it’s my job as a playwright to be prescriptive or moralistic. I just want to portray the people as authentically as I can.”

The play is structured chronologically. “There was so much that was happening during those 12 years, you have to pick and choose and you have to do it in a way that coheres logically and narratively,” Mr. Canfora said. “It was the first play I wrote that was based on real people. As a playwright, it’s sort of daunting inherently to try to write dialogue for Arthur Miller. At a certain point you just have to put that aside and try your best.”

The playwright has been actively involved in rehearsals. “The cast and the director are really bringing the play to life and, frankly, elevating it, as far as I’m concerned. So I feel very lucky.”

The play is directed by Michael Wilson, whose Broadway work has included Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful,” Gore Vidal’s “The Best Man,” and “Enchanted April.” Among his Off Broadway credits are Miller’s “Incident at Vichy” and Lanford Wilson’s “Talley’s Folly.”

The five-character play features Wayne Alan Wilcox as Miller, Vince Nappo as Kazan, Rachel Spencer Hewitt as Monroe, Mark Blum as Cohn, and Jeffrey Bean in a number of supporting roles. All have extensive theater, film, and television credits.

Mr. Canfora’s previous plays include “Place Setting,” which The Newark Star-Ledger nominated for best play of 2007-8, and “Jericho,” “a lovely, humorous work with laughs,” according to Anita Gates of The New York Times.

Performances of “Fellow Travelers” will take place Sundays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays at 7 p.m. and Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 p.m., with matinees on June 6, 10, 13, and 17. The play will run through June 17. Tickets range from $40 to $125.

Bay Street’s other Mainstage productions are Peter Morgan’s “Frost/Nixon” (June 26 to July 22), Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Evita” (July 31 to Aug. 26), and a special six-day run of Steven Fales’s “Confessions of a Mormon Boy” (July 17 to 22).