The story of St. Francis is pretty well known. Yet, sitting in Manhattan’s La MaMa theater watching “God’s Fool,” I wished that, say, Capuchin Friar Remo DiSalvatore, the Franciscans’ provincial based in Union City, was in the next seat connecting the dots for me.

But that would miss the genius of Martha Clarke, the creator and director of this non-linear stage presentation. “It’s an experience rather than a translation,” Clarke told me the day after I met her in the theater lobby.