Edmund Kean — How Can a Man Have Real Self Expression?

Expression Is a Oneness of Inside and Outside

In his 1949 lecture "Aesthetic Realism and Expression," Mr. Siegel explains that the original meaning of the word expression is "the pressing out of something from ourselves." He says:

In every instance of expression the self must be put outside...The business of the self doing a murky job in itself is not expression. In fact, it's poison...To express means that you see yourself as an outside thing, and you send yourself abroad.

And so when a person expresses himself truly, I learned, he puts together inside and outside—what is deep within him comes out and joins with what Mr. Siegel later calls a "friendly outside." But the self can object to this, can want to stay inside and hide contemptuously. Discussing this lecture in a class, Ellen Reiss asked: "Do we have a self to hug and caress it, and stay in the self armchair? Or do we have a self to go forth, to see meaning in what is not ourselves?"

That is the debate I was in growing up in South Florida in the 1950s and 60s. In the early love I had for acting and performing, my self did go forth. At Pine Crest High, I was excited to be in The Singing Pines, putting on shows of songs and dance at school and all around Ft. Lauderdale. I relished the hours of rehearsals, learning the tenor parts and the choreography. I was proud because I was using my voice, my feelings to try and be fair to what was not me—notes, rhythms, dance steps, my partner.

But most of the time, even though my parents were fairly affluent and we had a nice home, I felt stuck in myself, lonely and ill-natured.

I learned from Aesthetic Realism that I had unknowingly used my family to be snobbish and look down on other people. And there was an unspoken agreement between my mother and me—which I now see as really hurtful and also unintelligent—to feel that people who expressed themselves outwardly were vulgar and gushy, and lacked the proper refinement. I came to see any showing of large feeling, whether pleased or angry, as distasteful and embarrassing. Secretly I envied people who could express large emotion, but mainly I lived by what Mr. Siegel describes:

One thing people do is imagine that they are expressing themselves by restraining themselves...They think that by keeping themselves to themselves...they are expressing themselves. About that, Aesthetic Realism says very carefully, even solemnly, and most decidedly: Phooey!

I went for that restraint which is really contempt—taking the true life and vigor out of things—and it nearly took the life out of me. At one point when I was about 20 I found it so hard just to talk with people that I was afraid I was going to stutter. I felt more locked up inside with every year.

I love Ellen Reiss for what she has taught me on this subject, and feel so fortunate to be her student. In one class at a time I was having difficulty singing a song in a musical presentation, in which a man has passionate, tender feeling. Miss Reiss asked if showing such a large emotion would make me feel foolish? I felt that, and Miss Reiss said:

The important thing here is accuracy—it isn't so much tremendous emotion, but accurate emotion. And if there is that in the world that deserves [large emotion], the only accurate thing to do is to give it.

And she said that in having feeling and expressing it, I needed to feel "never was I so tough, so savvy. A person is being born right now," she continued. "Would it be good for that person to have great feeling or little feeling?" Hearing this question articulated, it is so clear the answer is great feeling. And this is true in every aspect of my life—in the work I love as an Aesthetic Realism consultant, as an actor, husband, son, friend. This has me feel expressed in a way I once thought would be impossible, and I am enormously grateful.

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