BIG BASTARD

Synopsis

In the remote woods of Sierra County, aging recluse Patrice Bean lives alone in the cluttered house her domineering father once ruled, clinging to her land, her grudges, and her failing health as neighbors and authorities circle with mounting concern. When she begins feeding – and befriending – a massive black bear she dubs “Big Bastard,” what first seems like eccentric defiance slowly reveals itself as something far more complicated: a reckoning with a violent past buried in the 1970s, when two local girls disappeared and Patrice’s tyrannical father fell under suspicion. As present-day deputy Cody Hodges – named after a teddy bear Patrice once gave his grandfather – reopens old wounds, the play shifts between past and present to uncover the truth of what Patrice sacrificed to stop a monster in her own home. Darkly comic, haunting, and ultimately redemptive, Big Bastard is a story about guilt, survival, and the complicated ways love and violence can take root in the same soil.

Inspiration Set

Playwright Note

Inspired by the 2023 death of Patrice Miller, who was killed by a black bear in the remote woods of Downieville, Big Bastard is not a retelling but an exploration of the emotional terrain beneath such an event, resisting easy narratives of recklessness or blame to consider what goes unspoken. The bear becomes a shifting presence, at once companion, threat, projection, punishment, and protector, a manifestation of hunger and memory. At its core, the play examines how trauma embeds itself quietly in the body, the home, and the land, and how violence, when absorbed rather than confronted, distorts the boundaries between protection and imprisonment. Family secrets carry weight; they do not vanish when buried but fester and consume those who keep them. Patrice believes she is in control, containing danger and safeguarding what remains of her family and past, yet that control demands a cost to her humanity and perhaps her safety. Even within this darkness, the play embraces a strain of dark, absurd humor that surfaces as a means of survival, a fragile insulation against collapse. Set against the indifferent beauty of Sierra County, which holds history without judgment, Big Bastard ultimately asks what we choose to feed, what we choose to starve, and how long we can live alongside what we refuse to name.

Production History

None to date.

Development History

BIG BASTARD received a public development excerpt reading in New York, New York on Fri, Mar 14th, 2025 as part of Jade Rabbit Theatre Company's Playwright's Lab. The cast featured Eric Webb as Arthur Bean, Betsy Regus as Patty Bean, Todd Butera as Cody Hodges, Carole Monferdini as Patrice Bean, and Marie Eléna O'Brien as Brenda Simmons.

BIG BASTARD received a public development excerpt reading in New York, New York on Wed, Nov 5th, 2025 as part of New Ambassadors Theatre Company's Play Development Lab. The cast featured Brian Reilly as Arthur Bean, Sammy Smedley as Patty Bean, Robert Maisonett as Cody Hodges, Carole Monferdini as Patrice Bean, and Marie Eléna O'Brien as Brenda Simmons.

Awards/Recognition

None to date.

Reviews/Recommendations

"Craig Houk has a gift for writing obstreperous older women - cranky, mouthy, arch, and complicated -- and he's given us a real gem in BIG BASTARD'S Patrice. As this Rural Gothic story unfolds in two timelines, Houk peels Patrice/Patty like an onion, exposing layers that burn...and bring tears. A potent mix of humor, danger, and dread, with an appealing dash of the uncanny, BIG BASTARD will sink its claws into you."

"Big Bastard is an unsettling, dark mystery. Houk skillfully weaves the story of Patty’s trauma as a young woman at the hands of a “big bastard” with the tormented existence of Patrice who, years later, must contend with a villain of an entirely different species. The haunting interlaced story lines take the audience on a heartbreaking journey that will certainly provoke conversation and reflection after the curtain drops."