I belong to a group reading plays aloud together, which is great fun. We do not see the plays beforehand. A few years ago we read Alan Ayckbourn’s ’Body Language’, an outrageously funny play. One of the characters is called Hravic Zyergefoove, an 84 years old surgeon from an unspecified East European country. Ayckborn has created for him a language, which he speaks in the play. The copy of the play provides a translation but I got the idea that in the performance he just speaks the language that is not understood by the audience, though sometimes his assistant provides a translation. A great chance for an actor!
I went to the internet to see more information of the play. Martin Hoyle, Financial Times, 24 May 1990, in Body Language, writes:
"…an octogenarian surgeon from Eastern Europe whose speech seems a cognate of Serbo-Croatian mixed with Czech and Slovak."
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But David Jeffels, The Stage, 21 June 1990, in Women On The Verge writes:
"Nigel Anthony as the German surgeon of international repute gives a delightfully funny performance, contrasting with the straight-laced Benjamin Cooper, brilliantly played by Geoffrey Whitehead, who runs the high-class medical clinic in the South of England where the play is set."
I am at a loss to understand why he thinks the surgeon is German as the language looks like this:
Lololo! Nit im. Ip gool crack, men. Int klingt ip ribbt shickershack snoop ipper smoot! or
Ert zimter, een fiss shrigger Memmer Hrootpucker woo ten benshtergeel teadle. Oh, een woot vint ipper ribbies.
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