LEWISTON – When a large group of people gets down to swapping viewpoints on TABOR, Maine sales taxes and other government levies, you’d expect shouts of anger, not peals of laughter.

Nevertheless, laughter was the outcome as a standing-room-only crowd looked at the subject of “Taxing Maine” from the nonpartisan and somewhat twisted perspectives of David Greenham and Dennis A. Price Saturday afternoon. It was a cornerstone presentation of a multifaceted Humanities Fest sponsored by the Maine Humanities Council at several Lewiston locations throughout the day.

With historical character vignettes and a few little-known facts, Greenham and Price poked fun at taxation in Maine with the intention of generating feedback in a discussion with the audience. It was a contagious concept, with the public’s questions and comments matching the actors’ wit.

A woman raised the issue of “death taxes,” and Greenham asked her to explain what she meant.

“I don’t really know what it is. I’m not dead yet,” she quipped.

A member of the audience suggested a tax on people who go to Florida but come back here for six months, which Greenham dubbed “the Snowbird Tax.”

Another described Vermont’s “View Tax,” which puts a higher tax on a house with a wide-open view than on the one next door where they can only see the house with the view.

“And they think we’re crazy,” Greenham joked.

One of several quick skits in “Taxing Maine” lampooned the origin of Maine’s sales tax. Greenham and Price played imaginary New Hampshire lawmakers plotting in their statehouse cloakroom to pass off the sales tax idea to Maine.

Their take on a typical debate about TABOR (the Taxpayer Bill of Rights) boiled down to a series of “Will – Will Not” shouting matches.

Greenham is producing director at The Theater at Monmouth, and Price is a popular actor in Monmouth shows.

After Saturday’s presentation, Greenham said, “The conversations are really a lot of fun” at each of they towns they have played. He said no tax money was paid to put the show together.

The Maine Humanities Council presentation is done without charge in towns that request a show.

Greenham and Price will present “Taxing Maine” again at the Auburn Public Library at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28.

The short play, which is sort of a theatrical lecture, was commissioned by the Maine Humanities Council and has been performed at nearly three dozen venues throughout Maine since May.

“Taxing Maine” isn’t Greenham’s first work for the Maine Humanities Council. Almost 20 years ago, he wrote and performed a “Theater of Ideas” play that raised questions about the exodus of young people from Maine.

More recently, he developed another play to explore the diverse and divergent demands on Maine rivers.

“Taxing Maine” was presented at the Benjamin Mays Center on the Bates College campus following a luncheon attended by many past and present board members of the Maine Humanities Council. Fiddler Steve Muise and singer/guitarist Robert Sylvain, who comprise the Quebecois duo Boréal Tordu, donated their musical talents during the luncheon and after the play.

Victoria Bonebakker, associate director of the Maine Humanities Council, said the day’s 30th anniversary celebration was attracting several hundred people to dozens of talks and activities at Bates locations and at the Franco-American Heritage Center. They included Somali foods, storytelling for children, and lectures on art, history and culture for adults.

She said, “People are having fun, and they seem to appreciate all the different offerings.”