STAGE REVIEW : Students Provide Honest Snapshots of Teen Years in ‘Album’ : The direction comes from the heart, without cuteness, condescension or apology. And the production’s young cast gives honest performances.

“Album” by David Rimmer is a play about four high school students coming of age during a changing time, the 1960s, when morality was debatable, drugs fashionable, and hormones boiled over two by two into the back seats of borrowed cars.

Sound familiar? It looks familiar at the Backstage Theatre under the promising direction of Gregg Alberg, himself a teen-ager, leading an all-student production.

Certainly, the choice of material couldn’t have been better. Rimmer’s play is a timeless tale of teen-age Angst and Alberg’s compassionate direction comes from the heart, without cuteness, condescension or apology.

The young performers are exactly the right ages to portray this quartet of restless children trying desperately to “grow up” (meaning to have sex, leave home, make their own rules). Melanie Wilbur, Sarah Tuntland, John Bajorek and Chris Sansone give honest, relaxed performances as friends groping and wrestling their way toward graduation and maturity.

Specifics are not always well-defined. The sequences of time and place are confusing. The acting colors are primary and the scenic rhythms repetitive. But the production has the vitality of personal truth and is alive in a way that many more sophisticated presentations are not.

Although spiced with mature language, the script itself has a built-in nostalgia, not only for the tender years of budding adulthood but for the era of NoDoz and the Beatles. So parents might enjoy revisiting the language and music of their own youth--or may find the play a useful forum for opening discussion on the sticky issues of sexuality and growing up.

But “Album” really is a show about teen-agers, presented by teen-agers, and if anyone goes, teen-agers ought to. It could be a hot ticket for the high school crowd that, thanks to Backstage Theatre producer Al Valetta, has a unique opportunity to take the whole joint over, from the lighting booth to the last seat in the house.

‘Album’

A Backstage Theatre production of the play by David Rimmer, directed by Gregg Alberg. With Melanie Wilbur, Sarah Tuntland, John Bajorek and Chris Sansone. Sets and lighting by Peter Taylor. Continues Thursday through Saturday evenings at 8 p.m. through Jan. 30 at the Backstage Theatre, 1599 Superior Ave., Suite B2, Costa Mesa. Running time: about 90 minutes. $12 general admission; $7 for students. (714) 646-5887.