BUCKSPORT — With a tough-talking series of skits built on provocative themes and contrasts, the youthful L.A. Players unveiled their psychodrama workshop to Bucksport High School last week.

It wasn’t the standing ovation from the 115 BHS sophomores in the room that defined the students’ reaction to the presentation. The teen-agers spoke to an audience that sat in riveted silence as an actress haltingly revealed that her alcoholic father was forcing her to skip school so he could have sex with her at home.

Like a curator in a gallery of social nightmares, John Grant left his vantage point from the edge of the room and glided to the front of the assembly hall. The Lincoln Academy guidance counselor motioned for the skit to conclude, then beckoned the audience to participate in this dark fiction.

“What do you think?” he asks the sophomores. “Do you think her friends knew? Do you think her mother knew? You — back there.”

A girl of about 16 stands as Grant rushes toward her with a wireless microphone.

“I want to know if she’s told anyone,” the girl inquires.

“Well, have you?” Grants asks while turning to the actress, who slowly shakes her from side to side as her bottom lip begins to quiver.

The Damariscotta counselor moves toward the stage and wraps his arms around the girl.

“You can tell me, and we’ll get you help,” says Grant. “We’re not going to let him hurt you anymore.”

As the scenes fade from the conflict between a non-drinking alcoholic father and his son, to a senior who primes his freshman girlfriend with beer and then convinces her to have sex with him, the audience gets a look into lives that become twisted and broken by alcohol and drug abuse, lives that might be a mirror reflection of them and their friends.

It was clear that the message was hitting home with the students in a way that the breezy “Just Say No” approach of the 1980s never could. The skits, Grant said, were part of a coordinated awareness program that was unfolded to the students in defined stages. Before the skits were staged, the sophomores had discussed drug and alcohol problems in small groups. Then they adjourned to the auditorium where they watched the Lincoln Academy students bring their conversations to life on stage.

The L.A. Players will stage workshops at more than a dozen schools this year. Occasionally, the chilling fantasies of psychodrama take the form of reality for one of the young members of the audience. While the teen-agers watch the players, Grant watches the teen-agers. He may see the tears that escape from the eyes of an abused student who has been silent too long. Or maybe it’s the boy in the middle row who has been staring at his shoes since the skit began.

“I can see it in their face, and I’ll mention it to someone afterward, Grant said. “I take control of the audience interaction. Frequently, I might grasp the questioner by the arm or shoulder, if it appears they need support.”

Psychodrama workshops were only part of the four-day Substance Abuse Awareness session held for Bucksport sophomores last week. There was a visit from two Thomaston State Prison inmates who gladly imparted advice on the dangers of drugs and alcohol in exchange for a chance to see a young, innocent face again. There were presentations on eating disorders and drunken driving. Bruce Johnson, a Bangor magician, gave a unique performance on the “The Illusion of Drugs and Alcohol.”

Mac Herrling, a social worker at Bucksport High School, said the program’s success stemmed chiefly from involving students in the early planning stages of the seminar. The small-group sessions, he said, helped students identify their problems before they occur and, perhaps more important, before they occur. The idea of teen-agers helping teen-agers may be the best hope America has in its efforts to conquer drug and alcohol abuse.

“Solving problems about drug and alcohol dependency will not come quickly,” Herrling said. “But seminars like this one, in which the participants plan part of their own prevention strategy, are an excellent approach.”

Marci Laite of the Department of Educational and Cultural Services Division of Alcohol and Drug Education lauded Bucksport’s varied menu of awareness programs as a “model system,” because of the school department’s comprehensive and consistent emphasis in kindergarten through high school classes.

“Instead of treating the problem after it occurs, they’re trying to give the kids the skills, tools and knowledge to prevent abuse from happening,” Laite said.

Working with groups like the L.A. Players has given the Bucksport School Department an edge in stemming bad habits at an early age. Although the skits never play through the same way twice, Grant and his cast always wind up delivering a forceful message.

After six performances with the same group of students, the director returns to Damariscotta after each presentation with a cast that has been emotionally drained.

“On the way home today, a half-hour or an hour may go by before anybody says a word,” Grant said. “The kids just ride home with the sides of their faces up against the glass. Eventually, though, they’ll ask me when we’re going to stop and eat.”