Bill: What’s the book?
Betty: The Sound and the Fury.
Bill: Oh, Hemingway.
(Bell.)
The conversation about the book introduces the theme of class to the play. Being educated allows Bill to move forward in his relationship with Betty. Book learning thus has an instrumental social function. Here, there is a wrong answer (Hemingway) and a right answer (Faulkner). This bit of rapid dialog is also an intellectual joke written for an audience who knows exactly who wrote The Sound and the Fury. It has an added depth when one knows that Faulkner is known for writing long sentences, while Hemingway is known for writing short ones. It’s also funny as a comedic gag, because the conversation has just started to gain momentum, and then the dialog is halted by Bill’s obviously wrong reply, and he must start again.
Betty: The Sound and the Fury.
Bill: Oh, Faulkner.
Betty: Have you read it?
Bill: I’m a Mets fan myself.
(Bell.)
The line about being a Mets fan is a non sequitur, as the Mets are a baseball team—a completely different topic from literature. It’s a sign that the Bill and Betty of this iteration are not a match, because their interests lie too far apart. And it represents their varying depths of intellectual interest, as Bill can name the book she’s reading, but doesn’t know anything about it.
Betty: Where was college?
Bill: Oral Roberts University
(Bell.)
Oral Roberts University is a private Evangelical liberal arts university in Tulsa, Oklahoma named after its founder, evangelist Oral Roberts. It functions here as a symbol of southern Christian culture. A New York audience would find Bill’s answer particularly unexpected and thus funny.
Betty: Do you like Faulkner?
Bill: I love Faulkner. I spent a whole winter reading him once.
Betty: I’ve just started.
Bill: I was so excited after ten pages that I went out and bought everything else he wrote. One of the greatest experiences of my life. I mean, all of that incredible psychological understanding. Page after page of gorgeous prose. His profound grasp of the mystery of time and human existence. The smell of the earth...What do you think?
Betty: I think it’s pretty boring.
Bill’s mistake in the first iteration of this topic is to be long-winded and self-absorbed. He ignores Betty’s comment that she has just started the book, and blathers on about Faulkner, sounding pretentious. It is clear when Betty says that she thinks the book is pretty boring, she is actually judging Bill.
Betty: Do you like Faulkner?
Bill: I love Faulkner.
Betty: He’s incredible.
Bill: I spent a whole winter reading him once.
Betty: I was so excited after ten pages that I went out and bought everything else he wrote.
Bill: All of that incredible psychological understanding.
Betty: And the prose is so gorgeous.
Bill: And the way he’s grasped the mystery of time–
Betty: –and human existence. I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to read him.
This scene takes up the same topic as the one before it, with almost identical language, but with a different form: Instead of Bill making a long speech, the rapturous description of Faulkner’s writing is divided into a dialog shared by Bill and Betty, which builds their relationship. This time Betty exclaims: “I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to read him.” It’s implied that her comment about the author reflects her feelings about Bill.
Bill: You never know. You might not have liked him before.
Betty: That’s true.
Bill: You might not have been ready for him. You have to hit these things at the right moment or it’s no good.
Betty: That’s happened to me.
Bill: It’s all in the timing. (Small pause). My name’s Bill, by the way.
Betty: I’m Betty.
Bill: Hi.
Betty: Hi. (Small pause).
Bill points out that Betty might not have liked Faulkner before, which is funny because the audience has just experienced her rejection of Faulkner—and by extension, Bill—in the previous scene. Bill states a major claim of the play: “You have to hit these things at the right moment or it’s no good...It’s all in the timing.” The timing refers to meeting someone at the right time in your life, when you’re emotionally ready, and also the coincidence of being in the right place at the right time, and also the timing of dialog. The rhythm of conversation in comedy is called comic timing. "All in the Timing” is also the name of a collection of six one-act plays by David Ives (of which “Sure Thing” was one) which were performed together off-Broadway for over 600 performances.
Bill: Do you come in here a lot?
Betty: Why are you asking?
Bill: Just interested.
Betty: Are you really interested, or do you just want to pick me up?
Bill: No, I’m really interested.
Betty: Why are you interested in whether I come in here a lot?
When Betty asks Bill “Are you really interested, or do you just want to pick me up?” she is calling attention to Bill’s line as a line—it's a question that, in this context, is so familiar as to be a cliché. When Bill's words become recognizable as generic, rather than specific to their particular interaction, they paradoxically call attention to themselves, halting the flow of the conversation.
Bill: Do you come in here a lot?
Betty: Every other day, I think.
Bill: I come in here quite a lot and I don’t remember seeing you.
Betty: I guess we must be on different schedules.
Bill: Missed Connections
Betty: Yes. Different time zones.
Bill: Amazing how you can live right next door to somebody in this town and never even know it.
Betty: I know.
Bill: City life.
Betty: It’s crazy.
Bill: We probably pass each other in the street every day. Right in front of this place, probably.
Betty: “Yep.”
Bill: (looks around): Well the waiters here sure seem to be in some different time zone. I can’t seem to locate one anywhere….Waiter! (He looks back.) So what do you– (He sees that she’s gone back to her book).
Betty: I beg pardon?
Bill: Nothing. Sorry.
(Bell.)
Bill and Betty wonder about having been at the same cafe at different times. The phrase “different time zones” is a metaphor for being in the same place, but at different times, and by extension the role of chance in forming relationships. Just when they are connecting about the amazing nature of city life, Bill breaks his attention by looking for a waiter. By the time he returns his focus to Betty, it is too late, she has gone back to her book. He thus performs the topic of missed connections they have been discussing.
Betty: Labels are not important.
Bill: Labels are not important. Take me, for example. I mean, what does it matter if I had a two-point at–
(Bell.)
three-point at…
(Bell.)
four-point at college? Or if I did come from Pittsburgh–
(Bell.)
Cleveland–(Bell.)
Westchester county?
Betty: Sure.
The thesis “labels are not important” is ironic because it is the opposite of what is demonstrated in the scene, and in fact in the entire play. The scene shows that labels are important, because Bill can’t make headway with Betty with a poor GPA or being from an economically depressed Midwestern city. Labels, it is implied, are used to assess economic prospects.
Bill: How many times have you seem Bananas?
Betty: Eight times.
Bill: Twelve. So are you still interested? (long pause).
Betty: Do you like Entenmann’s Crumb cake...?
Bill: Last night I went out at two in the morning to get one. Did you have an Etch-A-Sketch as a child?
Betty: Yes! And do you like Brussels sprouts? (Pause.)
Bill: No, I think they’re disgusting.
Betty: They are disgusting!
Bill: Do you still believe in marriage in spite of current sentiments against it?
Betty: Yes.
When Bill and Betty realize their mutual love for Woody Allen movies, they not only speak hyperbolically (Bill: “Do you like the early ones?” Betty: “I think anybody who doesn’t ought to be run off the planet”), their characteristic behavior becomes over-the-top: Bill has seen the Allen movie Bananas eight times, and Betty twelve. The fact that their fandom of Woody Allen is the thing that finally brings them together is a comment on genre: they finally fit together when their characters like the same genre of film, and so it is implied, occupy the same genre. Once Bill and Betty conform to the same genre, their taste preferences become in sync. They are thrilled to share very generic tastes. Entenmann’s crumb cake is a mass-produced product from a company that started in New York; the fact that Bill and Betty both eat it means that they are just like everyone else in their location. The Etch A Sketch was one of the most popular toys of the baby-boom generation, so it is no magical coincidence that they both had one, but a demographic marker. There is some tension for a moment when the audience is led to wonder if Betty likes Brussels sprouts, while Bill thinks they’re disgusting, but of course they agree on this as well. This is no surprise since Brussels sprouts famously provoke disgust in many. The humor of the scene is in Bill and Betty’s growing excitement about all that they have in common, which turn out to be trivial, commonplace items. The absurd leap between agreeing about brussels sprouts to marriage is highlighted by the jump from a short staccato exchange to the long line with the qualifier “in spite of current sentiments against it.” Bill and Betty are both traditionalists who believe in marriage and want children. That is not a surprise because that’s what the genre of romantic comedy demands: a happy ending, defined as a marriage.
