Rave review of Harriet Harris (our own Elatia Harris's sister, who also played Frazier's agent Bebe Glazer in the long-running TV sit-com) playing Dottie Otley in Michael Frayn's play “Nothing On.” This is Anita Gates in the New York Times:
The fictional actress Dotty Otley is a very important woman. She may be playing a generally thankless role, the maid, in a dreadful British farce called “Nothing On.” That’s the play within a play in Michael Frayn’s hilarious “Noises Off.” But without Dotty, and without a real-life actress playing her to the hilt, “Noises Off” couldn’t rise to the heights.
Luckily for the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey’s joyous new production, Harriet Harris plays the dowdy Dotty with major flair. Ms. Harris is the star attraction, known for her 2002 Tony Award-winning role as a landlady and sex-slave trader in “Thoroughly Modern Millie” on Broadway; her turn on NBC’s sitcom “Frasier” as Bebe Glazer, the title character’s blithely cutthroat agent; and a more recent recurring role, as the passive-aggressive sister of a recently murdered neighbor on ABC’s “Desperate Housewives.”
But to her credit, Ms. Harris, while demonstrating her comic genius, does not dominate the show. The best farce is ensemble work, and she stays both in tune and in line with the rest of this nifty nine-person cast.
More here.