An Instance of Lack of Decorum in Shakespear's Two Plays: A Midsummer Nights Dream and Romeo & Juliet

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22nd September 2011.
Decorum refers to the appropriateness of actions, which should be in accordance with the characters being portrayed and this essay will discuss the importance of this concept in A Midsummer Night`s Dream and Romeo & Juliet.
Given that these two were written as plays, and were penned with the vision of having the characters being played out on stage and portrayed as real characters, decorum is a relevant concept for actors to understand to deliver the roles as real and relatable. And to this end, decorum means certain values or things that are shown on the stage be appropriate, and in line with the level of audience.
Decorum in the Shakespearean times was important, as people of that time abided by the formalities and regarded propriety highly, and it is order to study the norms and the traditions of that time that studying decorum in Shakespeare`s plays is important. Plays and literature such as the Midsummer Night`s Dream and Romeo and Juliet are in fact windows in time to understand society as it existed at the time.
The play midsummer night`s dream is based of magic, love, philosophy and fantasy having various characters such as fairies. The theme is complex due to its imaginative attributes and to pay a tribute to its complexity, the portrayal of the characters should also be the same. Thus, when this play was acted it did not meet the level that it should it have met. Instead of engaging viewers in the play, the spirit of the play was done away with by displaying it as dull act having no immense meaning.
This plays lacks decorum because it has certain destructive scenes such as rape, hints of violence and death threats. It also has some brutal acts which make the play to be considered as a violent play. Du...