(Rob McClure’s article appeared in The New York Time, 5/6; via Pam Green.)
When did “sentimental” become a bad word?
I’ve always felt the opposite. I became an actor because I enjoy being moved, and therefore strive to move others. I don’t know how one pursues a life in the arts without sentiment. And yet that word has been discredited, or even weaponized, to mean “cheap” or “trite.” It’s as if we don’t want to get caught feeling too much these days.
At the end of April, I opened my seventh Broadway show, “Beetlejuice,” at the Winter Garden Theater. I am immensely lucky. Yes, there are two decades of hard work behind me, thousands of “Nos” for every “Yes,” and I had the goods to stick with it.
But let’s be real. I’m also lucky. My successes are not wholly my own. I share them with those who provided me the millions of nudges, inadvertent and purposeful, that helped me. So when I noticed a small, sentimental moment of serendipity last week, I decided to celebrate it with a stranger.
