"indeedy-doo"
(07/09/07)
That's what he would say on stage when he
suddenly had no words. "Indeedy doo". He used to brag about the magic of that
phrase, saying things like "see? no one know you've gone up on your lines when
you say that!" and to that we'd say, "Q, everyone knows you've gone up on your
lines when you say that! That's what it means!" But he never believed us, or
seemed to care and for 30 plus years, when ever he played my assistant
Hoodstink in The Wizard Show and couldn't remember a line (and how is That
possible?!) he would almost smugly toss in an "indeedy-doo" and proceed to
traipse about the stage in that way only he could move waiting for someone to
save him. We never did. What he was doing was always funnier.
I first met Marque (later just Q) in 1970 in my drama class at Hamilton High
School. I had long hair but his was even longer and he could do this amazing
mime trick of sewing his fingers together. No doubt about it, he was cool so
when, come springtime, he mentioned that his mime troupe was going to perform at
the Agoura Renaissance Faire, I knew that my troupe had to perform there too.
Except there was one small problem. I had no troupe. Ah, but we were young and
details were the bane of the elderly; I gathered a group of my friends (among
them William "Billy" Barrett and Jeffrey "Gluckson" Briar) and we formed a
troupe. Not knowing anything about mime, we instead decided upon something much
simpler, a 16th century recorder ensemble. But apparently recorder players don't
get to stay over night (as Q explained it to us once we were there), mimes do.
And so Billy, Jeffrey and I put on white face and, keeping the makeup on as if
it were some kind of night pass, stayed over night. It worked. Q was officially
proclaimed God.
In 73, Billy and I were walking through the Blackpoint site at night (we might
have been flying on mushrooms, I really don't remember) and we ran into Marque,
sitting on one of the hay bails facing the main stage, grinning. We walked up to
him and asked him what he was doing. "Hatching out a scarecrow" was his reply.
The next year, when he got the Cock and Feathers wizard show script, we were
ready to admit to borrowing that moment from him, but it seems he might have
been on even more mushrooms than we were.
When Jeffrey chose to do other things, Marque joined the show and made it his
own. Suddenly Murkmouth had his own assistant, someone who seemed to crawl out
from under the same rock and, having this character beside me, everything I said
was suddenly funnier. When I would hit Jeffrey, the audience would gasp as if I
was attacking an innocent child; but when I hit Marque, they roared.
I fell in love with him at the faire as a mime and was amazed that this same
person was also playing Pantalone in "Salami Del Amore". To one day be able to
join the cast as Lelio was such an amazing thrill for, not only was I part of a
successful main stage show, I got to work with the likes of Billy Scudder, Judy
Cory and Marque Siebenthal. Dancing with the Gods.
When we toured the country on a bus he made a point of peeing out the bus door
in each state. When we got to lay out in center field at Dodger Stadium to watch
the 4th of July fireworks, he turned to me and whispered gleefully, "I peed
behind second base." His need to make his mark, to mark his territory was more
than accepted, it was expected. "I got backstage." "Did you pee?" "Of course."
It sounds so strange in this context but this is one of his many pluses, it
really is.
He made me laugh. On stage. Whenever he wanted to. And he knew it. I would be
crying in my wizard make-up trying to look anywhere other than directly into the
chimplike gawky face of this man. And our audiences knew it too. They knew that
this man owned me on stage and they delighted in the fact that, with one twitch,
he could reduce me to a blubbering idiot.
I could write about how much I love this man from now until I die and I know I
would still miss something I meant to say about him. My entire body aches and
each breathe is strained. No more Q? Are you insane? Where do we find our peace,
our sanity, our soul? I am pissed off at this man for leaving us this early and
if and when I do get to see him again, rest assured I will beat the living crap
out of him. In the meantime we hug each other, share some of the countless
stories this wonderful man has inspired and if someone asks me what I feel about
him, about life, about all of this, I guess all I can say say is
"indeedy-doo"
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