We talked to Stacie Burrows about creating her show No Good Drunk and dealing with its very difficult roots.
It’s the most cathartic show I’ve ever done. I hope they will find themselves in this story in some capacity
Stacie, your show, No Good Drunk, is described as a “hauntingly lyrical road trip through memory and addiction” that deals with alcoholism and domestic abuse. Let’s start unpacking that with the context in which those issues are explored.
I utilise storytelling and original music to tell true stories of the “no good drunks” that upended my family for generations. My mum really didn’t know her father at all. He drank himself to death when she was nine years old. All she was ever told was that he was a “no good drunk that’s buried in El Paso”. She spent years wondering about him.
I was first contacted by the ghost of my grandfather in 2005. A little boy who lived next door was known for talking to the dead! I live in Los Angeles and yes, we are very “woo-woo”. The only people who confess to believing in ghosts are people who have had undeniable interactions with them. The “pint-sized medium” that lived next door gave me a message which gnawed at me for years until I made the decision to find my grandfather’s grave. At the cemetery in El Paso, Texas, I was met with more questions than answers.
So I made it my mission to explore every lead that might produce information I could give my mum. She died last year from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease. Before she lost all her faculties, she shared memories of her father with me. But I knew they weren’t really her memories – they were the answers I was able to give her based on my research.
How did you go about doing the research, and what effect did your discoveries have on you emotionally?
I relied heavily on public records and interviewed as many family members as I could. I always recorded the conversations – some of which I utilise in the show. The greatest source of information came from my grandmother’s filing cabinet, a treasure trove of memories and evidence. Many of the answers my mum always wanted to know about her father were right there in the house, in a well-organised filing cabinet. After all, my grandmother was a secretary – keeping files in order was her life’s calling.
Putting the show together was absolutely exhilarating, draining, fun and emotional, leaving me completely fulfilled.
Your mother lived in a place and time when it was difficult for women to be heard. Do you think that still applies to women and many other voices today? What is the way forward?
Absolutely. When my mum was growing up, she had no outlet or encouragement to speak her mind publicly about hot-button issues – like her drunk husband who roughed her up. It’s sickening to think these women were supposed to be the caretakers of their families, but they’d better not speak up when someone mistreated them. I’ll qualify that by saying my mother’s first husband was an abusive alcoholic – not my father.
Of course, it’s still an issue today for marginalised people to fight to be heard. I think the only way forward is to have uncomfortable conversations, stare directly at injustice and shout about it from the mountaintops. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for Gloria Steinem and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (and many more!) to open the door to different points of view. But because they did it then, we can do it now. We still have a lot of work to do, but at least the cogs in the machine are turning.
You reveal people stuck in a rut. Do you see that in the ones you mention and in other forms – and what does it take to get out of one?
Oh, do I hate a rut! My mum was in a rut for the greater part of her life. We all fall prey to ruts at some point. My show is centred around addiction, and that’s a special kind of rut. There are so many resources available now – free resources like smartrecovery.org and Alcoholics Anonymous exist online. But in order to unstick yourself, you must move your body, seek out sunshine, and talk to someone. And if you need medication to stabilise yourself – for crying out loud, take it! I’m not ashamed to admit I take a low-dose Lexapro. I resisted the stigma for so long, but now I realise how helpful it is.
Once you had the material, you had to find a way to present it and highlight the issues. I understand that you, along with co-writer Sam Small and director Katierose Donohue Enriquez, have used various devices to do that. Can you tell us about this collaboration?
Sam’s a multi-instrumentalist and he co-wrote and co-produced the songs. We were sitting in my yard overlooking the Santa Monica Mountains. Sam had his guitar and we shared a few bottles of beer. I started telling him these stories of my mother’s father – a no good drunk buried somewhere in El Paso – and his eyes lit up. “These would make great songs,” he said. Sam is a bona fide genius poet and musician. Even though he’s much younger than I am and grew up on the East Coast, he has an affinity for writing in the 1950s Texas style. I was so honoured that he wanted to be part of the show.
Katierose Donohue Enriquez is my director and story developer. She has an uncanny knack for threading heartbreak with humour, as she does in her own solo show Queen of Fishtown. I love working with Katierose because she pushes me to find my way past my fears. She knows what the show needs, and I trust her wisdom.
What would you like audiences to take away from the show?
Oh, gosh. Well, it’s not my intent, but they’ll probably take a little sob home. It’s the most cathartic show I’ve ever done. I hope they will find themselves in this story in some capacity.
