After taking a job in a wealthy white man's house, Bigger unwittingly unleashes a series of events that violently seal his fate.

Richard Wright and Paul Green edited Native Son's plot to fit the time constraints of a play more easily.

[3] The script by Green and Wright was adapted again in 2006 by Cheryl West for Seattle's Intiman Theatre, however, she withdrew the right to perform it prior to the play's opening.

[4] A later adaptation, not based on the Green-Wright script, was written by Nambi E. Kelley in 2016 for a joint production from American Blues Theater and Court Theatre in Chicago.

Said Rosamond Gilder in Theatre and Arts, May 1941: " Much of what is important in the novel but is lost in the play -the profound subjective exposure of the Negro's unconscious motivations- is restored by the actor's performance.