‘Town Meeting’ Gives Politicians a Platform : Theater: The play brings well-known lawmakers onstage--and closer to the public they serve.

Once upon a time, politicians spoke to their constituencies from rear platforms on whistle-stop trains, front steps of town halls, city halls and state capital buildings, and sometimes even on street corners. Those were storybook days. Now the closest most voters get to their representatives is through a television screen.

Writer-director-actor Michael Eugene Fairman is trying to correct that separation in his “Town Meeting,” which opened Thursday night at Burbank Little Theatre, where Fairman is a member of The Actors’ Company.

“Town Meeting” is a play, Fairman says, “about a town meeting in a little town called Eaglewoods in Northern California. It’s exactly what it calls itself. We’re having a special town meeting in Eaglewoods, and we’ve invited a special guest speaker to come speak with us on an issue that’s been troubling our town, and they’re going to help clear it up for us a little bit.”

The surprise is that the “guest speaker” will often be a real, flesh-and-blood, get-down-to-the-grass-roots politician. The show is one-third scripted, one-third improvised and one-third open to the visiting speaker.

“I wanted to see if I could bring a little fun to the evening,” Fairman admits, “to spark it a little bit. These people have chosen a life of public service. This is what they do, they talk to their constituency, addressing ideas that they have about how our government can better work, and so they have a forum here. They can talk about anything they want to talk about. It’s part of Eaglewoods’ agenda on that particular night. It’s something we want to talk about too.”

As for the show’s structure, Fairman says, “about a third of it is scripted, and the improv is pretty well set for another third, and the rest of it is very free-form. We do have a beginning, middle and end, but nobody knows that except us,” the actors. “We have 13 actors and they sit on stage as town council members and also in the audience. They are the town, and the audience becomes part of the town as well. They can enter into the discussion, can sit and watch, whatever.”

The guest speaker scheduled for Thursday night’s opening was Republican Assemblywoman Cathie Wright of Simi Valley. A former mayor of Simi Valley who has been in the Assembly for 11 years, Wright says she agreed to appear because she thought it would be fun. She knows a lot about government and thought it would be a chance “to have a good time with something you know about.”

Wright wasn’t sure what she would talk about, but says: “Any subject is important, anything to do with government is important.”

The list of politicos who have shown an interest in descending on the little Burbank theater, and taking part in the very serious fun, is impressive. According to Fairman, it includes Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose), Assemblyman Dominic L. Cortese (D-San Jose), Pasadena Mayor Jeff Hughston, and perhaps most important, Gov. Pete Wilson, who is considering an appearance in late August.

“Everyone we’ve talked to thinks it’s intriguing,” Fairman says. “We have close to 30 people who want to do it.”

Fairman, who turned 39 Thursday, has had a lifelong fascination with reaching voters. As a teen-ager in Indianapolis, he was very active in civic issues. “I went to lots of meetings. In every one of them I was always amazed at how much change could take place, if they wanted it to. And sometimes they wanted it to. For 20 years I’ve thought this would make an ideal play.”

After getting a bachelor of fine arts degree in drama at the University of Evansville, and master’s degrees in filmmaking and fine arts at the University of New Orleans, he taught at the college level for a few years. But politics and theater kept pulling at him. Theater was his road.

His brother, an attorney in Indianapolis, is very involved in politics, but Fairman never felt like he had “the capacity to enter it as a real political leader.”

“I would consider myself a sham,” he says. “I have a lot of trouble with actors who use their gifts as speakers able to sway an audience with their performance, and get where they get to, the highest office, or mayors, or whatever. It’s much more illuminating to me as a writer, and as a citizen, to just investigate politics in the fictional world here.”

His prior investigation of the world of politics was his one-man show centering on Louisiana’s legendary Huey Long, which ran locally for six weeks in 1984 at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40 and later for six months at Burbank’s Gypsy Playhouse, where The Actors’ Company formerly was based. He has also played Huey Long in more than 300 performances nationwide, including a special performance before the Georgia Senate. “It was actually a publicity stunt for the Senate,” Fairman admits with a mischievous grin.

Mischief or not, make-believe or real, politics are very important to Fairman, who thinks theater and politics can assist one another. Fairman isn’t alone in this feeling. Assemblyman Richard Polanco of Los Angeles, who will be appearing Monday in “Town Meeting,” says: “I support the arts, and this is a great way to combine the arts and politics. I hope that by participating I can add a sense of realism to the production. I consider this an opportunity to reinforce the importance of citizen participation in open access to government.”

The show concentrates on the public’s participation in governing the world they live in.

“We, as citizens of the United States,” Fairman says, “because we truly are the government, and they are merely representing us, we need to take a much more active part.” He believes that there is sometimes a catch, though. “Our elected leaders are depending on you sometimes not to take part in their decisions, so that they can get things done, and if you take part, you’re going to muck it up. You’re going to get in the way. They have a formidable task in front of them, trying to facilitate government and trying to make it work.

“One of the things I feel theater should do is reach out into the community,” Fairman continues. “The purpose of this show is to be a public forum, and there aren’t better people to do that than public officials, to increase that awareness.

“This is my small way of trying to see if we can get public discourse and get people involved. If people took part at the start of the process, instead of right at the end, when it finally comes to a vote, and everybody gets furious and there’s a flurry of activity, if we could make the arc a gradual one of participation, a lot more could get accomplished and I think the country would have a dramatic change of point of view.”

“Town Meeting” plays at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays at Burbank Little Theatre in George Izay Park, 1100 W. Clark Ave. Tickets are $5. For reservations and information, call (818) 954-9858.