Word: cohen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...NORTHERN IRELAND on a beautiful summer's day, Brian Friel's Lovers gives a warm (and loving) glance at two 17-year-old fiances. Sitting on a hill overlooking their town, Mag (Sarah Jane Cohen) and Joe (Aaron Carlos) try to study for final exams but mainly dream of their future together. Before long, Friel introduces a tragic twist: the couple will die in a boating accident before the afternoon is over...
...Cohen and Carlos are so very good with their tender, amusing scenes that they manage to steal the show from the somewhat clever narrative device. They seem to resist the heavy hand of the playwright and keep their characters alive...
From the moment of their entrances, Cohen and Carlos fill out these character outlines admirably. Cohen's Mag is a bright-eyed, quick-witted girl who loves to speculate upon anything but the final exam subjects at hand. With great charm, she prattles on about everything from their new apartment to the laughable nuns at school to maternal intuition; finally, she resorts to faking labor pains to take Joe's attention from his "grubby old books...
...That Cohen and his friends are willing to treat Blacks unequally not only violates the law, but does not bode well for the future of democratic society. Their views are symptomatic of a growing tendency to deny that Blacks are full-fledged citizens since they have failed to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and "make it" in white middle class society...
Blaming Blacks in such a fashion not only betrays an incredible ignorance of the history of Black oppression in America; it also decreases the chances of improving their lot in the near future. Cohen basically is telling Blacks, "Sure, I'll accept you, but not until you become educated, upstanding citizens. In the meantime, stay out of my jewelry stores, keep away from my apartment building, and don't hang out with my kids." This attitude is more than simply offensive. It prevents us from fighting the profound inequality that still permeates our society...