Strange Fruit

JUDITH comes out of the dining room eating a large banana.

From balcony to pit the audience, which had come to see a revival of Kaufman & Ferber's Stage Door, seethed with indignation. Actress Ilena Sylva was actually chomping a real banana--scarcest of all delicacies in Britain.

All progress with the banana is temporarily suspended.

Tantalized, the audience waited. The play was forgotten, all eyes hung hungrily on the luscious, yellow fruit in the actress' hand.

JUDITH takes final bite of her banana . . . tosses the banana skin on the floor.

A yowl of anguish shook the rafters. Miss Sylva valiantly spoke the moderately funny lines for which the banana business had been a cue, but they were completely drowned in the hubbub. A perfectly good banana had been sacrificed to make-believe!

Few in the irate audience suspected that the same fate was in store for two more, jealously guarded by the property man. The three bananas had been contributed by a drama lover of Great Yarmouth, who had made his three children give up their precious fruit. It was doubtful whether Actress Sylva had any right to eat them. By law, only children under 18 are entitled to bananas in Britain. Miss Sylva is over 18.

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