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When Raz left the group in '89 to develop his solo material, the other two decided to continue without him. "I saw their show recently and it was a very humbling experience," he said. "I expected to find something lacking - namely me - but to my chagrin I enjoyed it very much."

Daz began his career as a street juggler on San Francisco's Pier 39, and it was after completing one of his more frustrating shows with another member of Vaudeville Nouveau that he found out he and his partner had been cast in "The Comedy of Errors" along with the Flying Karamazov Brothers and Avner the Eccentric. "It was a very exciting project, and we hoped it would be a chance to use our skills in a more theatrical context," Raz recalls.

Working with the Karamazovs was a fun-filled event, and while some aspects of the show fell short of his expectations, "the theater treated us like gold and Robert Woodruff (the director) took our ideas and gave us some good bits to do."

Many were technically difficult, such as a forward roll into a feed and Raz's duties as fight master. Among his favorite stunts were "the jumprope of death," a two-man high jump, and a roving stiltwalk through the audience which involved sitting on people's laps. More than the spectacular feats, Raz remembers his many character roles. It was his first experience in speaking Shakespeare, and while the show often deviated from the original script, it gave him the opportunity to learn about the subtleties of creating a part.

"In order to make a Shakespearian character believable, you have to understand every nuance In e part, every motivation behind the character's words and actions, otherwise it make no sense and you lose the audience immediately," he said. .After a sweeping success at Lincoln Center, the show moved on to the Goodman Theater in Chicago and the Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles. Raz used the money he saved from the show to finance his trip to Europe in 1989, which provided the material for "Father-Land."

Raz has since directed many shows and workshops himself, many of which have involved school children. The most unusual of these endeavors must have been the "Caravan Stage Company," a master class in Commedia Dell'Arte and circus skills which toured Canada and British Columbia as the world's only horse-drawn theater.

Another teaching adventure was a special arts program for schools in Alaska whose mission was to teach circus skills and theater to Eskimo children and adults in the villages of Yukon \ Kuskokwim Delta. He will return to Alaska next March to teach in the 400-person village of St. Michels, and hopes to participate in the Eskimo Olympics. Its a fair bet that the town will be just a little bit different when he leaves!

Raz thinks these experiences might have helped him understand people as a director. "As a teacher, you have no real power at all it's the same with directing," he said. "You must be responsible for everything, but you can't just make people do what you want. All you can do is manipulate and cajole. You have to be a real psychologist in order to deal with people effectively."

In putting together "Father-Land," Raz found his own director, Jael Weisman, who also co-authored the script. On a rainy Tuesday in late February, many strange voices could be heard emanating from the Pickle Family Circus headquarters on Missouri Street. Raz had just returned from a stint with the Pickles at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and was in the process of putting the final touches on his show, set to open the following week in Berkeley. "It's been difficult arranging the opening longdistance," he said. "It seems I'm the only one who can organize everything that's needed, and I was afraid the promoters might cancel it before I returned."

As he ran from one errand to another in the hectic days before the opening, Raz could be heard mumbling various bits of dialogue and assuming the postures and mannerisms of the show's bizarre cast of characters, sometimes covering all 15 of them in one block (San Francisco has some long blocks).

When opening night finally rolled around, an expectant audience awaited the performance at the Jewish Community Center, although many were not quite sure what to expect. The play involves events which occured in Germany during the war, some in concentration camps - risky material for a Jewish audience.

But right from the start the audience became engaged in the story, which begins with Raz's childhood experiences in Brooklyn. He first encounters his Jewish heritage when a classmate asks him "Did you kill Christ?" and proceeds to dump tapioca pudding on the befuddled hero's head as he ponders the question. As Raz commented to a reviewer earlier in the week, "My background is shtick, and there had better be a lot of humor in this piece."