Whether you look at it as history or allegory, Athol Fugard's drama "Playland" is all about junctions, times and places where things are going to change.

It's set at a seedy traveling amusement park, temporarily set up in South Africa's arid Karoo region; there are no roots. It's New Year's Eve 1989, a time when apartheid, the South African system of racial separation, is coming to an end but remains in force. And as the play opens, a brilliant sunset fills the sky. But does it look like mountains of gold or the fires of hell?

The two men discussing these colorful alternatives don't know each other and seem to have nothing in common. Martinus Zoeloe (Erik Kilpatrick), who does menial jobs at the park, is black; Gideon Le Roux (Charlie Barron), a veteran of South Africa's long border war against Namibian rebels, is white.

Gideon wants to relax and have fun and Martinus doesn't want any trouble. Both want much, much more — and, to their own surprise, come to look for it in each other. Maybe they, too, can turn into agents of change.

Under the direction of Deanna Jent, this moving story about the unbearable weight of guilt and the flickering hope of forgiveness makes for a drama in which Mustard Seed explicitly lives up to the promise of its name. This is a play with a genuine moral sensibility.

But it's not as daunting as that may sound. Designer Courtney Sanazaro treats us to a cheap thrills setup that starts in the lobby and continues inside the theater, where the ticket-taker stands in a booth and wooden horses with chipped paint are mounted on a tiny carousel. All by its shabby self, this set makes us feel bad for Martinus, who calls this trash his home, and for Gideon, who has dressed up nicely to go there all alone on a big night.

The men's wide-ranging conversation in unfamiliar accents can occasionally be hard to understand. (Richard Lewis, the dialect coach, adds one more accent as the unseen owner of the park, an Afrikaner.) But they're appealingly exotic; even if you miss the odd word, you can always follow the tone, like music.

Kilpatrick, a big man, moves slowly; he's the play's center of gravity. Barron, short and slim, darts around the stage like one of the birds Gideon loved as a boy on his parents' farm. His favorite ride, he tells us, is the Ferris wheel; he wants to go up and around until he's so dizzy he's out of his head.

A night of steady drinking should accelerate this process, but it doesn't. Instead, it draws him back into wartime memories. We know he doesn't share these with his mother when they spend quiet nights watching television or with his co-workers on the job he loathes. Why does he choose to tell the grave, uncommunicative Martinus? Is it just because he's there? Or because, as Gideon insists, he senses that Martinus hides terrible secrets of his own?

The play's language is strong and disturbing; unlike many Mustard Seed shows, this one is not for family audiences. But it's never vulgar or cheap — and it doesn't give too much away to say it isn't entirely bleak. Sometimes it's funny; sometimes it's much brighter than that. With varied meanings, theatrical and otherwise, packed into its title, "Playland" offers a lot to mull over after Kilpatrick and Barron take their bows.

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'Playland'

Who • Mustard Seed Theatre

When • Through Feb. 12

Where • Fontbonne University Fine Arts Theatre, 6800 Wydown Boulevard

How much • $20-$25

More info • 314-719-8060; mustardseedtheatre.com