Festival going kicked off for me on Friday with a production of  Marivaux's The Dispute at the ever interesting Summerhall.

The story concerns an experiment to find out which of the sexes is the more fickle.  Four children, two male and two female are raised in isolation and at around 18 years of age are released, find one another and social interaction begins.

Lo and behold la donna e mobile, but the lads are just as bad.  This was a very nice production with good use of video and sound and fine acting.  I was intrigued though by the male bonding activities of the two boys.  Play fighting and general horsing around seemed authentic though I can't say I was much into that myself.  But they also jump and bang their chests together.  That's something I've never done nor seen done, except in another production of The Dispute that I saw at the Traverse not that long ago.

This coincidence sent me scurrying first to my own copy of the play then to a facsimile of the original text to see whether Marivaux's stage directions include chest banging.  No they don't. Ils sautent is all he says.

Somebody is copying somebody.  No harm in that.  I've done it myself.