Perkiomen Valley High School play is a trip down memory lane for fictional teens

The set consists of little more than chairs, a couple of tables and platforms.

The performers are in a kind of uniform rather than costumes—jeans and a black T-shirt with the name of the play emblazoned on the back.

Stripped of any elaborate dressing, all that's left is the actors, the audience and a series of memories that pour from the teen characters' mouths in Perkiomen Valley High School's production of Eleanor Harder's "Rememberin' Stuff."

Seventeen students took to the stage Friday and Saturday nights portraying a drama club tasked with discussing their memories. In a setting as stark as the honesty the script aims to attain, the characters take turns revealing moments of their lives—so far—that are in turn humorous, enlightening and tragic. The memories are either performed as skits or delivered as monologues to the other students, and sometimes just the audience. The scenes are interspersed with video clips of people including real-life family members who recall favorite people and things from their own childhoods.

The actors play a variety of roles, from the teens themselves to family members or friends in the memories.

As the characters traveled through memory lane—with topics ranging from adoption, religion, abusive relationships, divorce, teen pregnancy and eating disorders—certain moments struck a chord with the audience. In one scene, a girl sits alone at a desk and describes her beloved uncle's attempted molestation—and the fact that she hid it from her family. "Wow," one audience member whispered after the girl finished her confession.

A teen boy who admits he is an alcoholic, like his father, but has now been sober for a few months. He tells a joke:

A man is talking to twins. When the first twin is asked why he's an alcoholic, he replies, "Because my father is an alcoholic."

When the second twin is asked why he isn't an alcoholic, he replies, "Because my father is an alcoholic."

"I guess I'm the first twin," says in conclusion. The audience softly moaned with sympathy as he walked away.

 On the other end of the spectrum, two brothers—twice—descending into a "Did not" "Did too" argument sparked the most laughter. The same can be said about one girl's recollection of the DMV guy turning into a werewolf during her driving test. (What, that never happened to you?)

Before the show, director Steven Fields told the audience he wanted to "stress this is a student production," with four student directors—Lauren Brand, Katie Casty, Anthony Dippolito and Diana Zhu.  In that way, "Rememberin' Stuff" becomes a memory-maker for the PVHS teens, as much as the plot is a memory-sparker for their fictional counterparts.