What's next for Roger Friedman?

Harvey Fierstein hosting Drama Desk Awards

By LIZ SMITH

Friedman

Fierstein

OUR FRIEND Roger Friedman, the hardest-working entertainment columnist in the entire world, is a man who has burned a few bridges in his time. So this week he burned his bridge to Fox News by viewing a pirated film from 20th Century Fox and writing all about it. (Talk about waving a red flag in front of a fox!) So Roger is now fired. There has to be a lot more to this story than what appears. Brave -- some say foolhardy -- columnist, fired by one facet of an empire owned by Rupert Murdoch, when he tries to print the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Well, I know Mr. Friedman. I love Mr. Friedman's incredible work ethos. Nobody is writing straight-forwardly what is really going on here, there and everywhere in showbiz better than Roger. So aside from a quirk or two, like his undying negative assessments of Tom Cruise, I think Roger must be training for something new, something entirely different. Let's see where he goes next. He just has to have an ace up his sleeve. He must have known he'd be fired when Fox was spending millions to fight movie piracy. What's up, Roge?

THE DRAMA DESK people nabbed themselves a big name to host their 54th annual awards ceremony on May 17, a Sunday. They tapped Harvey Fierstein who has made 30 movies, has been the voice of Homer Simpson's assistant, Karl, in "The Simpsons," advised "Mrs. Doubtfire" on how to dress, advised Edna Turnblad how NOT to dress in "Hairspray," and made his debut Off B'way in Andy Warhol's only play, titled "Pork." Harvey already has two Drama Desk awards, four Tonys, an Obie and a Dramatist Guild prize. Jim Dale and Faith Prince will announce the Drama Desk nominees April 27.

WELL, I watched Bristol Palin's ex-beau, Levi Johnston with Tyra Banks the other day. I had to turn the volume way up. This kid -- and that's all he is, a kid -- is so soft-spoken and inarticulate as to make it hard to understand him. A Rhodes scholar he is not. And despite the violent reaction from Gov. Sarah Palin's camp, Levi didn't trash his ex, or Mrs. Palin. It seems he just wants more access to his baby.

The Palins don't seem to think much of Levi. Yet they showed him off at the Republican convention (against his will), insisting that the young couple were "engaged." And if John McCain had won, you can be sure Levi and Bristol would have been married, and well before their baby was born. Now, he's an "exploiter." At least to Palin matriarch, Sarah. But she was more than willing to marry her daughter off to someone Bristol probably didn't really love and with whom she wasn't keen on exchanging vows -- a nifty White House wedding and a respectably married child; a tidy "family values" bundle.

Latest flash! Levi responds. He says the Alaska governor is "snobby" and flat-out lying about him. And he adds that his formerly good relationship with Sarah Palin began to unravel after the election. Hmmm ... after she stopped palin' around with presidential nominees.The great playwright Lillian Hellman could have written it! I'm telling you, it's very "The Little Foxes" in Alaska.

YOU ONLY have until June 14 to see "Exit the King," Eugene Ionesco's masterly 1967 comedy, revived at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in a production of such perfection and absurdity that the audience is in fear of falling out of their seats from hysterical laughing. (In a Shubert Theater where the seats are small, that's not easy.) As King Berenger, Geoffrey Rush gives a performance of his, yours and my lifetime. He is not only funny and theatrical to the bursting point -- his king is intellectually daring and ultimately, humanely sad. The production, as directed by Neil Armfield is glorious. Susan Sarandon as Queen Marguerite takes a minute to get one's attention (not her fault) and when she does, she is brilliant. The surprise is Lauren Ambrose as Queen Marie (yes, this king deserves two queens!) Remembered for her "Six Feet Under" role, Lauren is quite deliciously insane in this role. These special women stand up to Rush's unrelenting, inspiring and abnormal performance.