Stronger - Inside the Mind of a Mentally Fucked Up Ex-Marine

Hands on a Hardbody; despite its namesake, it is not a stage porn or anything like.  (I begged Miller to let me play it naked, but apparently that doesn't "fit in" with the artistic direction of the show...whatever!)  The documentary that Hands on a Hardbody is based on follows an annual Texas contest in which the participant who keeps their HANDS on it the longest wins a brand new Nissan Truck.  These contestants are not fucking around either.  Everyone has their own methods of preparation, and strategy for maintaining the stamina and willpower necessary to win.  By the end of the documentary I found myself rooting for certain people too, which was kind of funny considering I know who wins!  Seeing the actual people that the characters in the musical are based off of was fascinating too.  Some of the script is taken verbatim from the documentary, which adds a really cool and more authentic feeling to the show.  Many of the characters in the show have the same names as the actual contestants in the documentary.  Chris Alvaro is more loosely based on the marine in the documentary, who actually doesn't say much throughout (which is fine by me, because I have more room to create a backstory that feels authentic, as opposed to feeling an obligation to mimic a certain personality, though that can be fun too!)  Anyway, I digress...It's not like I'm outlining this thing first, so it may be a little scatterbrained, but Chris is a mental wreck anyway, so it's good!!

Chris Alvaro is pretty fucked up.  What we know about him from the beautiful lyrics and book to this show is:  he is a Private in the U.S. Marine Corps; he has an estranged wife who he married young after finding out she was pregnant, and a young son who was born while he was deployed; he has just gotten back from a tour in Iraq where he witnessed the deaths of many innocent people including a young girl, which he describes in the song 'Stronger'; his reasoning for joining the Marines was to grow up, be a stronger man, a better provider, husband, father, etc.  However, he has returned from war filled with the guilt of feeling responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people, guilt for having left his pregnant wife behind in order to find his own sense of worth, and instead comes back a broken and haunted man who has lost his soul and his will to live.  He enters this contest because he's got nothing left to lose.  He is driven to win because he needs a reason to believe that some good can happen for him, that maybe he can rebuild his relationships with both his wife and son who he barely knows,  to prove that he does have worth and can be the provider that his family needs; he needs a reason to live...something to hold onto to keep from giving up on life like he wants to.  So even though he's at his rock bottom, he still is hopeful that he can turn things around, and this truck is his opportunity to do just that, or it's a start at least.

The first time I listened to 'Stronger' I fucking lost my shit.  It's a beautifully written song musically and lyrically in that it is universally relatable to anyone who has truly hit "rock bottom" in life; and it is a fucking emotional roller-coaster to sing through, let me tell you!  He describes the simultaneous fear and excitement of being a newly-wed and expecting parent, the adolescent need to find his confidence and his purpose in life and prove his worth, the recurring nightmares and endless guilt that come along with surviving a gruesome war in which he'd lost friends and himself altogether, and over which he has mostly lost his relationship with his wife and child.  At the start of the show Chris is very consumed by all that has gone wrong in his life, and has yet to truly recognize his self worth and sense of purpose.  His Marine training does end up being useful later on in the show, in a rather unexpected way, but I will not spoil the ending for you!

Though I have never been in the service and generally consider myself a pacifist, I have many family members who are and have been in different branches of the military, some currently deployed in various parts of the world, others who have survived several wars in years past.  I have been reaching out to other war veterans who are willing to talk about their experiences for information on what life was like for them before, during, and after deployment.  It is really daunting to listen to a vet describe watching an innocent person die knowing there was nothing they could do to help (this seems to be somewhat common), and how the battle in their minds didn't stop even after returning home.  I cannot  even fathom being in that situation, so anyone who is willing to talk about it is extremely helpful to me.  Not only for the more selfish pursuit of making Chris a more believable character, but I feel an obligation to tell his story as authentically as possible, as he is a compilation of many veterans who have been through similar and far worse situations.  It would be a disservice to those who have lived through it to falsify any of it.

Anyhow, that's some of where I am with Chris currently.  I have a LOT of backstory brewing up and solidifying itself in my mind currently, but will reveal that when the time is right, as some of Chris' emotional struggles remind me of periods of time in my own life.

Semper Fidelis,

Chris Alvaro