TEMECULA —— Most people can think back to their middle school days and remember how tough they were. Not the classes, mind you, but the peer pressure.

Clothes. Body type. Friends. Athletic ability. Looks.

In middle school, the typical priorities for many students aren't so much personality and grades but popularity and good looks.

But for hundreds of students at Margarita Middle School, that peer pressure, if at least for an hour of their day on Friday, was lifted off their shoulders and onto the shoulders of four actors.

Those actors, performing "Mirror, Mirror" for the school's students, incorporated their own middle school frustrations and experiences into the act. The end result was a hard-hitting and real look at what students at that age deal with on a daily basis and how to overcome that pressure.

The play is produced by the Coronado-based Lamb's Players Theatre. The storyline centers around four middle school students given an assignment to describe themselves in a poem or essay through one letter of the alphabet.

Just the letter "A" sparked a long list of words students could relate to as the actors shouted them out: Adolescent; alcohol; awkward; acne; average; attitude; alone.

During the play, actress Kelli Kelley incorporated her own real-life experiences struggling with weight and body image. In one scene, she chose not to eat lunch, which prompted a discussion among the actors about eating disorders —— how they are common and dangerous.

Actor Chris Bresky's issue surfaced as one of insecurity, and his character offered the audience a powerful monologue about how he hid his inferiority complex behind jokes, in essence becoming the class clown.

For actor Leonard Patton, his issue was one of anger and frustration, with himself and his father's expectations of him. Patton, in a monologue, described himself as a black teen too short to play basketball. His defense was to lash out at others through hurtful jabs, noting that "you gotta hurt them before they hurt you, 'cuz everybody knows nice guys finish last."

But through a lively game-show scene where he became the brunt of jokes about short people, Patton's character realized how hurtful jokes can be, even if they are offered in a playful manner.

In fact, in the end, all of the characters came full circle, realizing through the course of the play that they all had issues they needed to work through and overcome. All of the characters except for one, played by Ivy Vela.

Vela represented the voice of reason. Throughout the play, she stood up for herself, she stood up for others, she encouraged her friends, telling them to believe in themselves and make the right choices.

"Why do we categorize people?" she asked the audience rhetorically. "The world is so much bigger than just this school. I will not be figured out, classified, stamped and labeled."

The play was driven by a constant drumlike beat in the background, funny one-liners that would make any middle-schooler laugh out loud, and dream-sequence skits that kept the students glued to their seats and eyes facing forward.

The play's end prompted a hearty round of applause from students. Afterward, they said they were touched by the play's message —— and also that they could relate to it.

"It explains a lot," said eighth-grader Jenny Seidlitz. "Sometimes people do things that they don't realize hurt other people. It's really what school is like sometimes."

Seventh-grader Taylor Cahill said the play showed her that while most people care about clothing brands and how they look, not everybody has to. Her friend Courtney Burkett agreed.

"It's not how you dress, it's how you act," Courtney said.

Courtney and Taylor said they believe that the play will help change the way students treat each other, if at least for a little while.

Contact staff writer Jennifer Kabbany at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2625, or jkabbany@californian.com.