12019-03-12T23:58:03+00:00Stanford University Pressaf84c3e11fe030c51c61bbd190fa82a3a1a1282411Canada Lee played Bigger Thomas in the stage adaptation of Native Son, 1941 / Mercury Productions, photograph by Vandamm - Theatre Arts, Volume 25, Number 5, May 1941plainpublished2019-03-12T23:58:03+00:00Anonymous
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12019-03-12T23:56:34+00:00September 27, 19414plainpublished2019-10-11T18:15:37+00:00On September 27, 1941, the Pittsburgh Courier ran an article about the stage adaptation of Richard Wright’s novel Native Son. The play was directed by Orson Welles and starred Canada Lee as Bigger Thomas. “Hailed as the best dramatic novel of the season, ‘Native Son’ was not as easily transferable to the stage as might at first have appeared,” the Courier noted. “When Richard Wright, the author, realized the difficulties inherent in a dramatization, he called upon Paul Green, playwright of the Pulitzer Prize winning ‘In Abraham’s Bosom,’ ‘The House of Connelly,’ and ‘Johnny Johnson’ for assistance. Together they have wrought a play in several scenes ranging from the Thomas parlor bedroom-kitchen in a Chicago tenement to the prison death row in which Bigger awaits his eventual doom.” The New York Times praised the play, which it described as the “biggest American drama of the season.”
