Owen Meany stage show more than a prayer
Matthew Ralph

I fell in love with A Prayer For Owen Meany as a high school senior. I don't remember how it happened, but my homeroom teacher was so impressed with my obvious enthusiasm reading it one morning that she somehow managed to convince my English teacher to assign the book to all of her 12th grade English classes. I discovered this overhearing classmates complain in the hallway about reading a 600-page book because of that "damn Matt Ralph kid."

I didn't mind of course — the assigned reading that is—because I had already read the book and had enjoyed every page turn, every plot twist and just about every time Owen Meany opened his mouth to speak. It was funny, I would tell my peers. Witty. Irreverent. And even blasphemous, yet somehow a better representation of the mystery and beauty of faith and the relationship of doubt to faith than I had found anywhere else at the time.

When I first heard about a stage adaptation of a book I have a habit of buying and adding to my shelf whenever I see copies at thrift shops, my reaction was similar to when I heard about a movie that was loosely based on the book. Ugh. The book is unadaptable, I thought. It's hard to even explain, which perhaps lent itself to the short-hand "it's 600 pages" description my pre-Harry Potter and pre-Da Vinci Code non-reading peers in high school used.

My fear subsided once actor Doug Hara appeared on the sparse but eerily lit gray sky backgrounded stage at the Arden Theatre in Philadelphia. At this moment, the audience learns that, thankfully, the doll being picked up by the characters playing Sunday School kids on stage is not being passed off as Owen for the duration of the play. This Owen is much bigger and his voice isnít quite as abrasive as the book—where everything he says is written with the caps lock key down—leads you to imagine.

But the suspension of disbelief in a story where a great deal of disbelief already needs to be suspended is not painful. From the moment Owen yells "put me down" the casting makes sense. He may not completely sound or look like John Irvingís rich prose suggests, but he embodies it all just the same. The self-assured cockiness, the rude sincerity, the sentimental charm and most importantly the spectacular magic is all there.

As much of the story that is missing —characters are dropped wholesale, entire plotlines are removed and pages and pages of magical dialogue and youthful vigor (I was hoping the scene where they move the headmasters car would be included) are left out — the script is true to the bookís spirit. I know this because I felt myself latching onto to the story and believing it as much as I did as an earnest 18-year-old. I winced as innocent little Owen rattled off profanity, smoked Camels and had a most unfortunate sexually charged incident playing the Christ child. I pondered death and the hereafter. I questioned my faith: in people, in God, in the church and in religion.

Like the Irving novel, this Simon Bent adaptation — which made its debut in London in 2002 — doesn't hold back. A strong cast directed by Terrence J. Nolan makes sure of that, looking and sounding very much like the characters looked in my imagination when I first read those 600-plus pages of one of the greatest American novels ever written.

Creative blocking and sparse yet colorful props —it's amazing how a basketball hoop, a statute of Mary Magdalene or a flag-draped casket can paint an entire scene so vividly — bring this tale of faith and sacrifice to life in a way that may have even convinced some of my high school classmates how much they were missing. Of course, it isn't without its limitations, in particular the last third which seems rushed and somewhat forced by comparison to the opening act that could probably stand alone as a truly hilarious one-act play.

There are additions and alterations to the original story. One in particular is a standup comedy routine scene where Owen makes subtle contemporary jabs at the Bush administration, spouting off about a future president who will claim he talks directly to God while making obvious references that could be just as much about the present war in Iraq as the Vietnam War of the story's period.

Whether the decision to cast Owen as a prophet in this particular scene was appropriate, it shows how relevant a story originally published in 1989 still is. To call a book so young a classic may still be a stretch, but this adaptation certainly adds to its legacy. Where the film Simon Birch's loose affiliation with the novel failed, this stage adaptation shines.

Playing at the Arden Theatre Co. through Oct. 15, 2006. For more info visit http://ardentheatre.org/2007/owenmeany.html

posted [09.22.06]

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