God's Donkey (a play on Moses): Drama. Created and performed by A Traveling Jewish Theatre. Directed by Corey Fischer. (Through Sunday. At the Traveling Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida St., San Francisco. 75 minutes. Tickets $12.50-$25. Call (415) 399-1809 or visit http://www.atjt.com/).

As uttered by Aaron Davidman's potent, skeptically obedient Moses -- just before Eric Rhys Miller's arrogantly inscrutable God pulls the last breath from his body -- the protest brings "God's Donkey (a play on Moses)" to a resonant, provocatively prophetic conclusion. It's the last of many bracing twists in A Traveling Jewish Theatre's version of one of the greatest stories ever told.

Developed by Davidman, Miller and director Corey Fischer with a rich fiddle,

blues and cantorial score by Daniel Hoffman, "Donkey" was Davidman's first project with the company -- nationally known as ATJT -- he now serves as artistic director. It's toured widely since it opened in 2000 (and will again in the fall). Small wonder. Though it has its dull spots (mostly the cliched Freudian commentator), it's a vivid example of what ATJT does best: richly inventive stagings using the simplest of materials and engagingly deft performances wrapped around a story that explores Jewish traditions to invigorating and, in this case -- given the tragic situation it portends -- profoundly disturbing effect.

"Donkey" is far from ATJT's last word on such fiercely divisive issues. Next month, Davidman, Fischer and Miller start working with Ibrahim Miari -- an Arab actor with Israel's Acco Theater Center -- and Sharon Kantor, a Jewish writer, performer and musician from Tel Aviv, on a piece exploring the "shared and competing" Arab and Jewish lore about scripture "and the current conflicting claims to the land."

Tentatively titled "The Middle East Project," the piece will be developed in a series of workshops through ATJT's long-established, fertile collaborative process -- aided by a TCG (Theatre Communications Group) Extended Collaborations Grant to underwrite the international travel. The result will be revealed next April as the final show in ATJT's new season.

That's not the only surprise Davidman has in store for his second season at the helm. Though final details are still being ironed out, he plans to open in October with Fischer and co-founder Naomi Newman in a co-production with Word for Word, which performs short stories exactly as written. That will be followed by Newman's solo retrospective "Fall Down, Get Up!" in November and a completely reworked "Moonwatcher: Return to Chelm for Chanukah" in December.

Then (in January) comes "Times Like These," a compel-

lingly original but true story of Third Reich repression written and directed by John O'Keefe. It's an unusually straightforward drama from the San Francisco artist who achieved national recognition with feverishly poetic Blake Street Hawkeyes works and vividly realized monologues. O'Keefe plans to stage the two-character drama -- about the fate of married actors, a Jew and a gentile, in 1930s Berlin -- with the same actors who've made it a deservedly long-running hit (going strong since early last fall) in Los Angeles. . Postcard from Paris: Speaking of Word for Word, co-artistic director Susan Harloe sends word that the intrepidly literate group has been enjoying an exceptionally warm reception on a multicity tour of France ("five venues so far"; Word is up in Paris Wednesday). The response, she says, is largely based on gratitude to greet Americans untainted by the anti-French sentiments the populace has heard so much about. But it can't hurt that Word is performing part of its luminous "Stories by Tobias Wolff" anthology.

Word opens its 10th and most ambitious yet season in June, with a Magic Theatre co-premiere of comic monologist Josh Kornbluth's "Love & Taxes," followed by Angela Carter's Lizzie Borden tale, "The Fall River Axe Murders," in August. The group revives its popular "Oil!" in October and premieres a new People's Temple tragedy work by Laramie Project writer Leigh Fondakowski and Campo Santo's Margo Hall in November. Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon appears with the group in a benefit performance and discussion June 30 at the Cowell Theater, (415) 345-7575 or http://www.zspace.org/. .

Path to a Pulitzer: No, Nilo Cruz isn't a local writer. But the new Pulitzer- Prize winner for drama has some local roots all the same. Some of his first plays were developed at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival in the '90s, and the Cuban-born, Miami-raised playwright received his first professional production here as well -- "Night Train to Bolina" at the Magic Theatre in '94, back when Mame Hunt was artistic director.

An edgy but underdeveloped tale of two children -- played by Greta Sanchez Ramirez and future Campo Santo founder Sean San Jose -- fleeing abuse and civil war, the script showed a rich promise more fully realized in "A Park in Our House" two years later. "Park" also premiered at the Magic, directed by the playwright. No one has announced plans to produce Cruz's Pulitzer-winner "Anna in the Tropics" locally -- but his next play, "Lorca in a Green Dress," will premiere in July at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.