Gurns, Immersive, Zoren

On watching A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I learned three new words: gurns, immersive theatre, zoren.

The first  is the word gurns.  

A review said that Puck “gurns and twists with distorted facial action”.  

I didn’t know what gurning was, so I had to find an online dictionary.  

Now I am going back to see if I can view the show again and catch that action in Puck’s face.

A second idea I had to fix in my mind is the technique of immersive theatre.

Off to the web to discover what that was again.

Much to my surprise, I have seen other plays using this technique.  I just didn’t have a name for it but of course I have seen it.

Zorb (with derivatives zorben and zorbing).  

I didn’t know what a zorb ball was.  

I don’t think I have seen one personally, though with all of this quarantining, I get mixed up with what is reality and what is my reality through a screen.  

For sure, I did see the zorben ball when

I first saw the play on the big scree.  I just didn’t have a name for it.  I noticed one critic was negative about the use of that ball.  I don’t know if I agree.  He argued, is this a play or a playground.  I was comfortable with it being both.