Dunn-As-Dunn -- Comedian Nora Dunn Has Been Creating Her Own Cast Of Characters For As Long As She Can Remember

Nora Dunn travels pretty light, except for all those people packed in her head.

The former "Saturday Night Live" cast member lugged only a couple of suitcases to Seattle for a monthlong stay to mount her one-woman show, "Nobody's Rib."

To carry all the characters that appear on stage during the 60-minute performance, though, you'd better rent a minivan.

There's Pat Stevens, the model-turned-talk-show hostess with values as shallow as a kiddie pool. And Babette, zee ooh-la-la international sex keeten wiz zee ludicrous French accent. And arts-and-crafts school graduate Estelle, whose medium of choice is uncooked macaroni.

And four others, including Ashly Ashley, stage and screen actress, and deep thinker about her craft. "My work is like sex," Dunn-as-Ashley says. "Grotesque yet easy to look at."

Likewise for Ashley, Babette, et al.

"Not making fun of these characters, but celebrating them," says Dunn-as-Dunn. "That's what draws you into them."

After leaving "SNL" at the end of the 1989-'90 season, Dunn put the finishing touches on a book featuring some of her better-known creations, then fashioned it into a one-woman show that's still a work in progress.

Harper Perennial plans to publish "Nobody's Rib" next month. Meanwhile, the stage version has already visited Los Angeles and San Francisco; when it leaves Seattle at the end of August, it heads to Minneapolis and then, Dunn hopes, onto celluloid.

Ask about the inspiration behind the seven co-stars of Dunn's solo show, and the former art school student and stand-up comedian slips into near-reverie.

"It's a voice," says Dunn, sipping a cardboard cup of coffee. "And usually from a real person."

Pat Stevens - probably Dunn's most familiar character from "SNL" - sounds like Connie, a beauty academy representative who used to visit Dunn's high school in Chicago. Pat drives a car with a FUR IS MURDER (TO CLEAN) bumper sticker and considers herself a voracious reader. "My favorite book," she says, "is Vogue."

Ashly Ashley owes her husky growl to leading lady Elizabeth Ashley, whom Dunn had seen in Broadway plays and on talk shows.

Lew, a dishwasher who dreams of visiting Disneyland, became the sunny anti-personality of a Chicago janitor whom Dunn recalls as a bottomless drum of bitterness.

Dunn has been lapsing into characters for longer than some of us have been trying to act like ourselves. Growing up with five siblings, she might cast herself as a family of bears, or join her sisters for a game where each would pretend to be a housewife named June.

Her first role ever: Joann, a guileless elementary schooler.

"Joann is the closest character to me that I have," says Dunn, recalling how she created Joann while only 8 or 9 years old, as the extended personality of a Christmas gift doll.

Joann feels sorry that Mr. Rogers lives in such a boring neighborhood that he gets excited about peeling an orange for his entire show. "I don't think he's aware of what's going on on other channels," she says.

The childhood play-acting enraptured Dunn enough to spook her mother, a retired nurse who now lives in Bothell.

"One time she said she heard me giving my dog a talk on personal hygiene, as Joann," says Dunn. "Joann has a really high voice, so I thought animals would understand her. I told my dog how important it was to brush teeth and use a washcloth. I knew my mother thought that was very, very funny. But she used to try to stop me doing Joann."

Dunn has ignored her share of career advice since then. Notably, as her five-year contract with "Saturday Night Live" wound down.

"You either come off the show as a huge star or walk away with nothing. Someone told me if I left, I'd find nothing. But I never felt I needed `Saturday Night Live,' even though I was and am grateful for it."

After her fifth season, which included the highly publicized standoff where Dunn refused to perform in the same studio as guest host and caveman comic Andrew Dice Clay, Dunn walked into the great unknown.

"I didn't feel like staying on a show where you had to compete every week, with other characters, for time. I had no appetite for it. I wanted to go out and face the nothing."

She hasn't gone alone. Dunn's husband of four years, stage and screen writer Ray Hutcherson, provides psychological support, and plans to produce the film version of "Nobody's Rib."

After that, Dunn says, "I want to move on. Play something that's written for me. And I want to direct. There's some actresses I know, they have these wonderful characters."

Then again, Dunn may find room in her already-crowded cranium for a few more characters of her own. She's curious, for example, about Ashly Ashley's ex-husband, Dev Devlin . . . Review of Nora Dunn's show, C6.