Illusion and reality
The first is Shakespeare's exploration of the nature of illusion and reality. This is manifest in a number of ways:
Shakespeare regularly plays with the illusion and deception inherent in the medium of theatre itself, from the complications arising from a boy actor playing a girl dressed up as a boy, to plays-within-plays. By analogy, the theatre becomes the world, in which our assumptions about what is real and what is not may in themselves be illusions.
States of altered reality are a regular element of Shakespeare's plays. They may be minor alterations, such as…
