Page:Shantiniketan; the Bolpur School of Rabindranath Tagore.djvu/61

Rh English plays are also sometimes given, as well as Sanskrit, and it is remarkable to see what histrionic powers the Bengali boy has, even when he has to act in a foreign tongue. When the play is in Bengali then they are in their element, and they seem to have such aptitude for acting that the smaller boys often get up plays of their own without any assistance from the masters. At the beginning of 1916 there was a performance of the poet’s new play “A Spring Festival” in Calcutta, and a number of the younger boys, aged from eight to ten, took part in the chorus. They did not have to do any acting, but merely sang the songs and took part in the dances, so that they were practically in the position of spectators on the stage. After the play was over, and we had all returned to Shantiniketan, these small boys surprised us by giving one evening a performance of the whole play, each boy taking one of the characters with such perfect mimicry of those who had taken the parts in Calcutta that the performance was irresistible. Every shade of humour and seriousness was reproduced to perfection by these pigmy actors.

An account of the School would be incomplete without some reference to what strike