On Saturday, January 15th, the 2011 New York Encounter will feature as one of its main events the Storm Theatre production in collaboration with the Black Friars Repertory Theatre of Paul Claudel’s “The Tidings Brought to Mary.”

Peter Dobbins, the President and Artistic Director of the Storm Theater, first put on this show in the spring of 2009. He recalled how in choosing to work on The Paul Claudel Project (which also includes “The Satin Slipper” and “Noon Divide”) he viewed it as “noble venture; to work on one of the great playwrights of the century who is really not done here at all.”

Throughout the story line that Dobbins describes as being yes simple, but also very big and complex, we come across many moving moments, many dramatic encounters and dialogues. For Dobbins, the play is centered on a single moment, a scene between two of the central figures, and perhaps the most striking characters of the play, Pierre de Craon and Violaine. It is a simple, beautiful act of immense kindness and compassion. The play, Dobbins says, is about this action and how everyone responds to it. It is an action which changes everything but which confronts all the characters and begs from them a judgment.

Being aware of the masterpiece that Dobbins and his crew is working with, he says: “For a great play such as this one you try to get out of the way as much as possible, let the play talk,” adding that this is really no easy script to direct: “I just try to, as Shakespeare would say: ‘fit the word to the action and the action to the word’. I have no concept on top of it, I just try to make my best attempt at understanding what Paul Claudel is doing and then I try to help my actors get that.”

The Hammerstein Ballroom has a huge stage, but Mr. Dobbins is thinking in a different direction. “The beauty of this play is in its simplicity,” he plans on creating a different smaller stage where the actors will be much closer to the audience, “I just think that would set the absolute right mood,” added Dobbins.

“The Tidings Brought to Mary” will be performed on Saturday January 15th at 8:00 PM as one of the events of the 2011 New York Encounter. This production is a perfect concrete example of the mission of the New York Encounter it prepares to tackle science, reason, religion, the economy, literature music.