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"We put the shake into Shakespeare and the hysteria into history, so we thought it was time to put the fun into fundamentalism," says performer Reed Martin.

The show plays at the Marin Theater Company in Mill Valley through March 29, alternating with "The Complete History of America (abridged)." Jewish audiences should note that "The Complete Word of God" tackles both the Jewish and the Christian bibles. "We poke fun at everybody; we don't discriminate," says Martin.

At the same time, "it's not about making fun of people's faith, no matter what their faith is," says Martin. "We just want people to have a good time.

"Everyone's had a boring clergyman, or a boring history teacher, or has seen a horrible Shakespeare production," he says. "Our shows are as much a reaction to those kinds of presentations as they are to the texts themselves."

The idea to "reduce" the Bible first came about when the troupe was performing its successful "History of America" show at the Israel Festival in Jerusalem. "The presenter of the festival said, `You know, if you condensed the Bible, we'd book you for that,'" says Martin.

Though none of the company's three performers is Jewish, the group represents a fairly wide spectrum of faith. Martin, whose maternal great-grandfather was an itinerant minister, was raised Presbyterian; performer Matt Croke "grew up Catholic and still goes to mass." Austin Tichenor, the third of the trio, "says that he grew up Utilitarian," jokes Martin. "He believes in God when it's useful."

In the show, dozens of characters are portrayed by RSC's three actors, with a host of wigs, costumes and colorful props. "It's fast, funny and furious," says Martin.

In the "David and Goliath" scene of "Bible," for example, Martin gets down on his knees as "David" and dons a long cloak with fake feet sticking out. He launches the fatal stone at Goliath and the scene goes into slow motion.

"The stone travels across and hits Goliath's head in slow motion," Martin explains. "Well, I say `travels,' but Matt literally carries it across. We're very low-tech!"

In the "Noah's Ark" section of the play, audience members participate as animals on the ark. The results can be quite anarchic, says Martin.

"They love it! We tour to places where they tell us their audiences are very reserved — but inevitably, people get into it and have a wonderful time."

The troupe formed in 1981, when they performed as a pass-the-hat act at Renaissance Faires in California. Martin and Tichenor, who is a Piedmont native, met as undergraduates at U.C. Berkeley — they studied political science and history, respectively. While Tichenor was earning his master's degree in directing from Boston University, Croke got to know Martin while the two were traveling the country as Ringling Brothers Circus clowns.

The three became adept at holding an audience's attention with their mixture of verbal comedy, slapstick and circus tricks.

Since then, they have traveled the world, performed an excerpt from their "History of America" show at the White House and provided voices for Steven Spielberg's animated film, "Balto," about an Alaskan sled dog.

"We played the second, third and fourth sled dogs," says Martin. "Basically, we did a lot of barking."

Lee Sankowich, artistic director of the Marin Theater Company, calls the troupe "too good to pass up…a top-flight, Marx Brothers-meets-Monty Python-meets-Flying Karamazov Brothers comedy team."

Of "The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged)," Martin declares that while "it's not brain surgery" it's "just awful fun to see a whole crowd of people laughing.

"That makes me feel good."