HAPGOOD: With so little to be sure of, If there's anything at all. If there's anything at all. I'm sure of here and now and us together. All I'll ever be I owe you, If there's anything to be. Being sure enough of you Makes me sure enough of me. Thanks for everything we did, Everything that's past, Everything's that's over too fast. None of it was wasted, All of it will last: Everything that's here and now and us together! It was marvelous to know you And it isn't really through. Crazy business this, this life we live in- Can't complain about the time we're given- With so little to be sure of in this world, We had a moment! A marvelous moment!
FAY: A marvelous moment! A beautiful time.
I need you more than I can say. I need you more than just today. I guess I need you more than you need me. And yet I'm happy. All I'll ever be I owe you.
HAPGOOD: The more I memorize your face,
FAY: If there's anything to be.
HAPGOOD: The more I never want to leave.
FAY: Being sure enough of you Made me sure enough of me.
HAPGOOD: Come with me, Fay. (The following is sung SIMULTANEOUSLY)
FAY: Thanks for everything we did, ... Everything that's past, Everything's that's over Too fast. None of it was wasted. ... All of it will last: ...
HAPGOOD: ... There's more to love In me right now Than all the bit of love I've known before. ... None of it was wasted. ... All of it will last:
BOTH: Everything that's here and now and us together! It was marvelous to know you And it's never really through. Crazy business this, this life we live in- Can't complain about the time we're given- With so little to be sure of in this world,
This is such a minor moment in the show, but it amused me when I first encountered the script for Anyone Can Whistle. The scene change is proceeding, but she stops it because she has trouble with one of her gloves. Once she's ready, the scene change proceeds.
OK, one last question. There's a sly reference to an early Laurents-Sondheim show in Anyone Can Whistle. What is it?
" At the end of the act, Fay destroys the Cookies' records one by one, "freeing" them by erasing their identities as mental patients. The "Don't Ballet" is a musical and choreographic dramatization of this concept, as we see each Cookie break free and dance around the stage when his record is destroyed. The "Don't Ballet" (reportedly written by dance arranger Betty Walberg, not by Sondheim) is an extremely long, very strange piece that has often been cut or cut down in later productions. It starts with a parody of Gershwin's American in Paris played by a muted trumpet, then moves into the accompaniment vamp from "Everybody Says Don't." At one point, it imitates the West Side Story prologue musically and percussively, and it's unclear whether this is an intentional imitation, as a joke or maybe as some kind of commentary on theatre dance music at the time (this was seven years after West Side Story opened), or if Walberg did this unconsciously. She uses lots of heavy jazz chords which again sound more like Bernstein's West Side Story music than like Sondheim's music for Anyone Can Whistle. It all ends with another quotation of the American in Paris imitation, first by the trumpets then the piccolo. It even ends with big, full orchestral Gershwin chords."