Photo of Dan Carbone and friend, by Mike Kuchar

Why? Because the stuffed-animal slinging, falsetto-singing, universe-weaving, Dada-referencing, Bay Area playwright and theater artist (and good friend and muse of seminal filmmaker George Kuchar) is all that -- and he's just been nominated for a New York Innovative Theater Award (being announced at a party in NYC tonight) for his 2006 Off-Off Broadway production of Kingdom of Not.

Savvy Fringe Festival regulars may recall that this same show played in SF last year, and garnered the enigmatic and oddly-compelling Carbone an award for "Best Dramatic Male Solo Performance." Carbone will also be a featured interview subject in an upcoming documentary about the Kuchar brothers, It Came from Kuchar. And he's working on a new collaboration with performance artist Erica Blue: a multi-media movement theater piece based on the movie Blood of a Poet by Jean Cocteau.

We've been a fan of Dan's work since the first time we saw him fling dolls from a suitcase onstage with all the seriousness of a supreme court judge, and our love was only inflamed by subsequent exposures to the strange and delicate lives of his characters: human, animal, and otherwise.

Recently, we got to listen to him talk for two hours over coffee. Which makes us extra-special. For you, here's a little bit of what Dan had to say about himself:

If someone has never seen your work, how do you explain it?
I would say that my work is structured on a kind of dream logic. And a lot of the work is created from dream dialogue. And I try to stay true to that. In that way, I'm similar to Cocteau and also the work of Luis Buñuel, because they worked from dreams. There is a power to dreams; they're kernels of something, there's a mystery there. You know there's something behind it but even you as the creator don't quite know what it is. And you don't want to discover it. But you know there's a power to it so the challenge is then to take these dreams onstage in such a way that it moves the audience. What happens is that audiences aren't used to this.

Dan said a lot more. Keep reading after the jump.

All of my stories are linear. They have a beginning, a middle and an end.... The reason why it's compelling is because it does make sense. It makes perfect sense to me. Even the most surrealist one, There Be Monsters, had a beginning, a middle and an end; it might have been more structured in terms of music. Some people thought it was just some crazy guy ranting. Other people actually listen to what I'm saying, and if you're listening, the story is progressing -- it's just being presented to you in a different way. It's a journey. People either make that transition or they don't.

From a very early age, I was looking for something very strange. When I was watching TV, I was always attracted to what was happening off-screen. If something happened, like a screw up when you suddenly saw the camera during a sitcom -- the behind-the-scenes, the mistakes... you see how the illusion is created. And I always liked stuff that was very very surreal.

When I was 11, I went into a record store and I found this album by Firesign Theater called, "I Think We're All Bozos On this Bus." So, I brought it home and I played the whole thing. And I didn't understand any of it. I thought, 'This is just a collage of voices. Why would these guys do this? It doesn't make any sense.' So I returned it; I said it skipped... And the damn record haunted me. Until I went back a year later and bought it again... (This time) I put it on, and I got one little joke. And it was like a window opened up. And suddenly the whole world that they were trying to create opened up.

You had to make this transition. It was seeing the characters in your mind's eye. And once I could do that -- it really blew my mind.

So I bought every album that I could find by them. And then I bought a book of Firesign scripts. I loved the albums so much; I did what a lot of people back then would do. I re-recorded all the albums, very slowly, with me playing all the characters. At one point I had six tape recorders in my basement, all these reel-to-reels and cassettes. So I did these weird, primitive mixes; I actually recreated the albums step-by-step.

Who is your ideal audience?
That's what I've been searching for. Sometimes when I look out at the audience, I think "This is my audience?" I don't know what they are. Cocteau said, "Don't worry about the audience." He called it, "a fugitive phenomena of a collective hypnosis." I don't know -- what can you say? I hope to gain some sort of a following. The reaction I got in that first Fringe (San Francisco, 1998) -- that was great! But then I had a regular run, and nobody came to it. And then everybody kept asking me, "When are you going to do another Fringe, Dan?" ...I'm trying to create my own way of doing things. But, I wish more people would come take a look. Maybe Hurwitt will review my next show?

Will you ever put your work up on YouTube?
I could put it up there. But it's been hard for me to see where it leads. I don't know what happens to it. What does it become? Everything is headed towards something new, and we don't quite know what that is.

It's like in film. Now it's been broken down to where anybody can do film. Anybody has access to high-definition video. This is something new. Everybody's got FinalCut Pro. So it's a very strange phenomenon.

All I can think of is to just keep doing what interests me. What I am doing is old-style, going back to vaudeville, Laurel and Hardy, Ernie Kovacs.

In solo performance, there is an expectation of how things are going to go -- like Mike Daisey who is sort-of like Spaulding Gray, or like Anna Deavere Smith doing her thing. These are people who do things from their lives.

I'm up there creating a different world. I'm sure somebody else is doing what I'm doing, but I don't know. I haven't seen it.

Where do you get your inspiration?
The band Pere Ubu -- (lead singer) David Thomas is a huge influence. I dedicated There Be Monsters to him. He's inspired by the same people I am, like Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart. (Thomas) has a great stage presence. He inhabits his songs and acts them out onstage. He's a real character.

And now, some SFist standard questions:

Introduce yourself in one sentence
I'm not like "them."

Age and Occupation
47. Consumer Affairs Liason for the California Telephone Access Program.

Hometown
Stanford, Connecticut

How long have you lived in the Bay Area, and where?
14 years. First in the Adams Point/Grand Lake area in Oakland, and now in Alameda.

Alameda has the best _________
Cops

What are you currently reading?
The Holographic Universe

Best artist to come out of the Bay Area
George Kuchar

Best burrito
Los Cantaros Restaurant on Grand Avenue

Best restaurant
The New Zealander, on Webster Street in Alameda. They even import their ketchup from New Zealand.

Place you always tell visitors to check out
Sutro Baths

Photo Credits: Kingdom of Not photos by John Sowle and Jen Gwirtz