(718) 260–2500 Brooklyn Paper’s essential guide to the Borough of Kings Dec. 27, 2019–Jan. 2, 2020
Island joy
He’s come a long way for this show!
A Bedford-Stuyvesant comedian will record
his first hour-long television special next week,
at Gowanus club Littlefield on Jan. 2. Tanael
Joachim, who performs as TJ, grew up in Haiti,
and says that his comedy resonates with those
who have been through the immigratino experience,
but also offers Americans the perspective
of an outsider looking in.
“A lot of immigrants like what I do, because
I’m an immigrant and I speak to that community,”
he said. “Americans also like it because
I present a different experience.”
TJ’s comedy often comments on things that
may seem normal to Americans, but are strange
to immigrants and visitors, such as Americans’
excessive consumerism, which he often contrasts
with conditions in Haiti. In one bit, he examines
the absurdity of thinking that “emotional
eating” to be a real problem.
“Do you realize what that means?” he asks.
“That means you have so much food that you
have food for specific feelings.”
TJ said he has spent years preparing for this
show, presenting the very best version of material
he has been working on his entire career.
“This is the first big set that I’m putting on
record,” he said. “I really had to pick and choose
what goes on the record.”
The comic pokes fun at his homeland, but he
is also the first to go to bat for it. After President
Trump reportedly called Haiti a “s——- country”,
TJ penned an op-ed for the New York Times
in which he argues that the citizens of the island
nation are the best humanity has to offer.
After performing for years, TJ says he knows
how to handle Brooklyn audiences, which he
says can be more sensitive than audiences in
others areas.
“There’s this overriding thing like ‘Oh we can’t
talk about this’” he said. “New people who moved
to Brooklyn want to control the narrative.”
He will share the stage at Littlefield with
Patrick Schroeder, Reggie Conquest, and Mia
Jackson, comedians he was worked alongside
for years, he said.
TJ at Littlefield (635 Sackett St. between
Third and Fourth Avenues in Gowanus, www.
littlefieldnyc.com). Jan. 2 at 8:30 pm. $10.
— Ben Verde
COMEDY
Got Straight no strings: The digital puppet production “Fear in the Western World,” explores how shooter
gun violence and fear affect two parents searching for their abducted child.
High-tech puppet show explores gun violence and fear in America
By Rose Adams
Brooklyn Paper
Welcome to the gun show!
A new high-tech puppet show
blends horror movie tropes and Greek
mythology to discuss gun violence in the
United States. “Fear in the Western World,”
opening as part of the Exponential Festival
at the Target Margin Theater on Jan.
5, follows two parents who trek through
catacombs hidden beneath under their suburban
home in search for their abducted
daughter — and who come across mythical,
gun-wielding creatures along the way,
according to the show’s co-creator.
“There’s a Greek slant on their adventure
as they go on,” said David Commander,
who wrote and directed the production with
THEATER
artist Rob Ramirez. “The whole performance
is presided over by Janus, the god
of transitions and passageways.”
The play’s spooky tunnels make the
show feel like a horror movie, Commander
said, but its creatures are as frightened as
they frightening. The protagonists, and
the catacomb dwellers they come upon,
cling to their guns for a sense of protection
— often injuring each other in shootouts
— even if there is no real danger,
Commander noted.
“They’re using guns because they’re
scared,” he said. “They’re scared when
they’re safe; they’re scared when they’re being
threatened. They’re just frightened.”
Commander created “Fear in the Western
World” in response to the many mass shootings
in the US since the Sandy Hook elementary
school shooting in 2012. Each tragedy
involved a cycle of violence, media coverage,
and political posturing that, to Commander,
felt like an endless carnival ride.
“There’s something kind of like a haunted
house ride or a rollercoaster where you can’t
get away,” Commander noted. “You can’t
escape it. You’re in for the ride.”
The show mimics the sense of anxiety
that Commander believes plagues the
country, and that contributes to the cycle
of fear and gun violence. But despite its
dark subject matter, the show is not completely
bleak, he said.
“It has a very optimistic ending,” he
promised.
The show will feature several high-tech
puppets with tablets for heads, with distorted
images of human faces on their screens.
The puppeteers will move the puppets with
rods, and change their expressions by using
a video game controller. The puppeteers
will remain visible to the audience,
allowing viewers to see how the show is
made, Commander said.
“There’s no attempt to trick the audience,”
he said. “The audience has a choice
in what to focus on.”
DINING
Raise the roof
Brooklyn is getting in tents!
Two eateries in Kings County have installed
rooftop tents for the winter, so that customers
can make use of spaces that would otherwise
remain chilly, empty tundras.
The Turk’s Inn, an over-the-top Midwestern
supper club transported to Bushwick, has installed
a giant, inflatable tent — like a bounce
house with a floor — on its rooftop, dubbing it
the Holiday Village.
The owner of the Turk’s Inn said that the rooftop
bar proved to be so popular over the summer
that he wanted to keep the party going all winter.
He designed the structure, and had it built
and shipped to the Bushwick restaurant, where
it too six people to haul to the roof.
When fully inflated, the heated space can
hold tables and chairs to seat about 40 people,
said owner Varun Kataria. But on weekends, the
furniture can be swept away to create a spacious
dance floor for about 60, and he also plans to
bring bands into the tent.
“We want it to grow organically and experiment,
let the space find out what it wants to
be,” said Kataria.
A clear plastic window allows light from a
neon “Turk’s Inn” sign to illuminate the tent,
and open windows on the opposite wall lead to
the rooftop bar. Outside the tent, the Inn also
has a heated patio that can be used as a smoking
area — smoking is definitely not allowed
inside the inflatable tent!
And in Dumbo, the Time Out Market has
created the Rooftop Iglounge (pictured), three
clear plastic domes that resemble igloos, set up
on its fifth floor terrace. The tents are not heated,
but with eight chairs covered in fake fur in each
tent, they quickly warm up, and the clear plastic
walls block the wind while still allowing for
stunning views of the Brooklyn Bridge and the
Manhattan skyline.
The tents are first-come, first-served, so visitors
should pick up food and drinks inside the
Market’s fifth floor and settle in quickly. The
Market features outposts of Juliana’s Pizza, the
David Burke Tavern, and tacos from Ivy Stark,
along with a bar serving special winter-themed
drinks, including the Snow White Tini, made
with vanilla vodka and chocoloate liquer, and
the hot bourbon Tom Toddy.
Holiday Market at the Turk’s Inn 234 Starr
St. between Wyckoff and Irving avenues, (718)
215–0025, turksnyc.com). Open Mon–Thu,
5:30–11:30 pm; Fri–Sat, 5:30 pm–midnight; Sun
5:30–10 pm.
Rooftop Iglounge at Time Out Market (55
Water St. between Main and Old Dock streets
in Dumbo, fifth floor, timeoutmarket.com/newyork).
Open Sun–Thu, 11 am–10 pm; Sat–Sun,
11 am–11 pm. — Bill Roundy
“Fear in the Western World” at the
Target Margin Theater 232 52nd St.
between Second and Third avenues in
Sunset Park, (718) 398–3095, www.targetmargin.
org. Jan 5–19; Wed–Sat at 8
pm; Sun at 3 pm. $25 ($18 students and
seniors).
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Expand your horizons!
A month-long experimental
theater festival returns to Brooklyn
next week for a fifth year of avantgarde
performances. The Exponential
Festival, starting on Jan. 3, will
feature more than 40 shows at nine
Kings County venues. The productions
include a wide variety of genres
and formats, but they are sure to stick
with the audience long after the curtains
fall, said the fest’s founder and
lead curator.
“I want to have something that I
think about later, hours later and years
later. It should raise questions,” said
Theresa Buchheister. “They’re going
for something that’s inherently complicated
and challenging.”
The organizer said that she put the
focus on Brooklyn venues because the
art in this borough is more experimental
but gets less attention than productions
on the island across the river.
“The January festivals are always
in Manhattan,” she said. “That’s not
THEATRE
where I see art.”
Over the last four years, the festival
has — true to its name — grown from
nine productions to more than 40.
Bucheister also prides herself on
selecting plays that show the perspectives
of people rarely presented
in mainstream theater.
“We’ve seen the story of two
straight white New Yorkers fall in
love a million times — I don’t need
to see that again,” she said.
One such play is the English-language
premiere of “Slow Sound of
Snow,” translated by Iranian-American
director Shadi Ghaheri. The show
is set in a Turkish mountain village
that spends its winters in near-silence
to avoid triggering an avalanche. As
the play starts, the town’s survival
rests on the shoulders of a pregnant
villager whose impending due date
threatens all of their safety. The play,
presented by an all-Iranian and Iranian
American cast, tells a Middle
Eastern story without the misrepresentations
of an American point of
view, said Buchheister.
Another eye-catching titles in the
festival is “Bernie Sanders wants to
take away my Fire Island time share”
by Xalvador Tin-Bradbury. It shows
a hyper-capitalist, dystopian future in
which a corporate gay man explains
why he spent nine years in hiding
after Bernie Sanders announced his
2020 presidential run.
Another highlight is “Bloodshot,”
a pulp-inspired mystery by the Underlords
theater group, set in an insomnia
plagued city where the protagonist
investigates the murder of a
sleep medicine inventor.
And those in the mood for a
lighthearted laugh should check out
“Catches No Flies,” a comedic dance
performance by Lisa Fagan, featuring
bad ventriloquism, a dolphin trainer
living her dream, inclement weather,
and a sardine escaped from the can.
“The Exponential Festival” at
various locations (917) 520–5912,
www.theexponentialfestival.org.
Jan. 3–Feb. 2. Prices vary.
Photo by Maria Baranova
Bigger and better
Experimental theater festival returns to boro
Double trouble: A pair of twin astronauts train for spaceflight in
“Venus in Gemini,” playing as part of the Exponential Festival.
Photo by Ali Garber
/www.tar-getmargin.org
/www.littlefieldnyc.com
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/www.theexponentialfestival.org
/littlefieldnyc.com
/turksnyc.com
/www.theexponentialfestival.org
