We did the first complete read-through of MISTRESS ILSA tonight. It went pretty well, although a sticking point is the Latvian accent of Mistress Ilsa and her rival dominatrix The Snake. The joke of course is that nobody knows what a Latvian accent sounds like - and it's so true. You can't even find good examples on Youtube. I mean two of their presidents whom I found, being interviewed in English, sound like they're from England, basically.
Sheesh:
Valdis Zatlers
Vaira-Vike Freiberga
And last but not least, a tiny sliver of English with a Latvian accent in this Latvian wife-carrying competition.
It's sort of Russian-sounding, sort of Greek-sounding, sort of Italian-sounding. Finally I gave up and told the actors to consider Arianna Huffington their model.
