‘Conquest’ Studies Psyche of Despair

Written during the boom economy of the mid-1980s, Manfred Karge’s German drama “The Conquest of the South Pole” seems prescient, dealing as it does with issues of unemployment, hopelessness and the fall of the working class.

In the play, four jobless, directionless young men meet regularly in an attic to vent their frustrations in an increasingly elaborate fantasy game. At first, the game seems cheaply vaudevillian, a blending of bad jokes and stilted playacting. However, when the group fastens upon Roald Amundsen’s expedition to the South Pole as the focus of its fantasy, the young men find a vivid new existence that makes their own puny lives pale in comparison.

In his directorial debut, Russell Milton, who also plays Slupianek, the leader of this ragtag “expedition,” lends a raw-edged urgency to Karge’s highly stylized and meanderingly metaphoric drama at the Lost Studio. Ryan Bollman is both boyish and wry as Buescher, the team member who mutinies briefly against Slupianek’s leadership.

Karge sometimes overbalances his delicate dialectic, sending it careening down the slippery slope of polemics. However, as these loser/heroes traverse a “dangerous” mountain range composed of hanging laundry, Karge’s drama takes an unexpected detour into the lyrical.

* “The Conquest of the South Pole,” Lost Studio, 130 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Oct . 29. $12. (310) 581-0010. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.