Illusion of Theatre A look into three of Shakespeares comedies
The Illusion of Theatre Theatre—something that millions of people go to see every year. ... Yet, the action seen in a performance is all one big illusion; a play acts as nothing more than men and women pretending to be lovers or fighters on stage. Nothing is real in theatre—lights and sounds are used to create certain emotions; costumes and makeup present actors as different people; lines are scripted and rehearsed. ... Shakespeare was well aware of the “fakeness” of the theatre and included a theme focusing on the difference between appearance and reality in most of his plays. ... The three caskets in The Merchant of Venice each have an outcome that went against what their outward appearance would suggest. ... A strange request is made in the will of Portia’s father in The Merchant of Venice: any suitors desiring Portia’s hand in marriage must enter a “lottery…[of] three chests of gold, silver, and lead” (1. ... 34) and trick him into thinking that his son has died. ... However, there exists a certain level of unbelievability in all theatre, which is probably a reason Shakespeare includes it as a theme in his plays. No matter how good the script, actors, or directors are, theatre is always a presentation of something fictitious. Throughout time, theatre has contained boys playing women and curtain calls in which a murderer and the murdered hold hands as if nothing happened. Shakespeare’s focus on appearance/reality in his plays is an allusion to the illusion of theatre.