Set during the Depression and the Dust Bowl in Legion, Okla., Kevin Mayer’s play “Thirst” is a parable of faith that takes its inspiration from the story of the Samaritan woman at the well in Gospel according to John. It is a tale of suffering, greed, guilt and salvation, directed successfully by Kansas University graduate student Danon Nicholae Park.

The Inge Theatre Workshop Series offers graduate students a chance to develop their directing skills within a manageable space and without the added complexity and cost of large production values. Thus costumes and set are minimized, and function merely to suggest the setting of the play. In keeping with this design, Jessie Jo Cook’s costumes successfully evoke the era without drawing excessive attention to themselves.

Set in the round, the stage is surrounded by the audience seated on risers. Robert Sturner’s lighting design enhances the minimal set, a group of crates on which the actors who are not speaking sit in a kind of chorus that often neither responds to nor interacts with the actors who perform in the center. Entrances and exits are made from throughout the stage through the sets of risers, and the actors use the space at the exit points to shed the character they have just been playing and return as a noninteractive member of the group on the crates.

The visitors to Legion are Civilian Conservation Corps workers Aaron Cable and Cordell Williams, who have been assigned relief duty in the drought-stricken towns of Oklahoma. By the time they reach Legion, they have given away nearly all of their supplies, much to Cable’s dismay. Cable, played with great sincerity by Carter R. Waite, is desperate to help others to assuage his inner guilt about events of his past. Williams (Scott Johnson) is the realist, eager to do the job he came to do and return to his own life.

While in Legion, the two hear about the water witcher, energetically played by Justin Knudsen, who came to town promising to find water. As each person in Legion relates a part of the story, Cable discovers he must face his own spiritual need, which is as great as any physical need suffered by the people of the town.

Each member of this large cast puts in a strong performance. All are featured in some way as their characters respond to the dowser’s visit. As the Preacher, Brandon Ford deftly delivers the tale of the Samaritan woman at the well, an essential frame for the play’s theme. Laura Leffler-McCabe is gripping as she fills in the final pieces of the tale of Legion’s experience with the dowser.

Water is the means by which the people of Legion can be saved both physically and spiritually. Their trouble lies in their inability to let go of the familiarity and comfort of their suffering and reach for that which will save them.

The play continues through Saturday at the Inge Theatre in KU’s Murphy Hall.