"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice — not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God," says John, the narrator of A Prayer for Owen Meany.

Set in author John Irving's New Hampshire of 1953, it is the story of the bond between John and Owen Meany — whose Little League foul ball accidentally kills John's mother. Owen is dwarfed through toxic exposure to industrial waste and possesses a piercing voice that he, and eventually John, believes is imbued by God.

Since it was first published in 1989, Irving's novel has been read as everything from a dark comedy to a modern parable of faith and the American Dream. The book was adapted with sinewy power by British playwright Simon Bent in 2002. This production, directed by Terrence J. Nolen, will open the Arden Theatre's 2006-2007 season.