Puckish actress, dog sharing the stage in Shakespeare comedy

Diane Wasnak calls herself "kind of mischievous, kind of like a prankster" -- characteristics she shares with Puck, whom she plays next month in Marin Shakespeare Company's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Known for clowning around with the Cirque du Soleil and the Pickle Family Circus, the 4-foot-11-inch entertainer doesn't shy away from a creative challenge.

"I'd do anything on a dare," says Wasnak.

From the looks of it, she has. Wasnak is an expert Chinese pole climber, stunt double (recently for Jada Pinkett Smith in "Matrix Redux" and the upcoming "Matrix Revolutions"), trick bicyclist, acrobat, mime, animal trainer, saxophonist, fiddler, accordionist and one-woman band.

The actress has an almost equally eclectic family background. "I'm a mishmash of everything," says Wasnak, who goes to her cousin's, the rabbi, to celebrate Chanukah and to her Lutheran and agnostic relatives for Christmas.

With her grandparent's encouragement, Wasnak took mime classes at age 11, writing and performing plays as she got older. She later attended an official clown school, Antic Arts Academy, and learned acrobatic skills with master trainer Lu Yi of the Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe.

Although Jews don't exactly have the reputation for being daredevils, they are known as comedians. Wasnak says Gilda Radner's flamboyance and her Jewish uncle's dry sense of humor have impacted her clowning shtick.

"The arts in general are a big part of the culture," says Wasnak, who will be performing for the fourth year with the Marin troupe at Dominican University in San Rafael, where the production runs Friday, Aug. 29 to Saturday, Sept. 27.

In fact, with all the Jews running around backstage, she says it's a good place to find a date.

Wasnak, however, isn't too concerned about dating -- "I have my dog," she says laughing.

Her dog, who has his own Web page -- http://www.dianewasnak.com/ bonzer.htm -- is Bonzer, a tricolored Australian shepherd and acrobatic wonder-dog. After a knee injury, on her day off, Wasnak had to cut down on pole climbing. Undeterred, she spent the last few years training Bonzer.

Aside from balancing acts and jumping through hoops, Bonzer will add an original twist to the late-summer show. He plays Moonshine in the play-within-a-play and is Puck's companion.

"I'm always looking for ways to expand myself as a person and a performer. I find working with animals creative and fun," says Wasnak.

Bonzer also seems to be up for the challenge. His Web site -- which shows him skateboarding and jumping through a hoop -- includes a resume listing his various interests (archaeology, or digging, is one of them). He even has a registered name: "Bonzer does Magic."

For Wasnak, playing a half-animal, half-human with Bonzer at her side "is a lot of fun," she says. "My whole life I felt more of an affinity to animals than to human beings. They don't sell drugs, they didn't blow up the World Trade Center, they don't shoot, they're loyal, cute, furry..."

She has a point. Although the role has created a few challenges for Wasnak -- like getting her legs stabbed with the 50 or so pins pointed the wrong way in Puck's satyr-like costume -- she can't think of anything else that she'd rather do.

"You have to have fun with it, you have to love it, even if you're playing a murderer, you have to love it." If you don't, she says, "the audience can tell."