Did Shakespeare's audience believe Measure for Measure to be realistic?

Question

In the play _Measure for Measure_ Vincentio, the Duke of Vienna, leaves his city in the charge of a judge while he goes on a "diplomatic mission". It transpires that he has not, in fact, left the city at all but has disguised himself as a monk and remained to spy on the actions of his courtiers. However, it has always bothered me that during the course of the play, the disguised Duke interacts with several characters who know him well. It seems to be stretching the bounds of credulity to believe that they would not recognize him in his relatively thin disguise. Yet none do. This motif, of a disguised character interacting with people close to them without being recognized, recurs in other literature of the period. Is this something audiences in Shakespeare's day would simply have accepted? If so, why? And if not, why was/is it not viewed as a problem with the narrative of the play?

Answer 1

Not to be dismissive, but I think the real answer is, "who knows?" Theater has always been about some level of suspension of disbelief, and probably more so in Shakespeare's time. Did they really believe it was a stormy night in Scotland when they could look up and see the afternoon sun in the roofless Globe Theatre? Did they really believe the Duke was speaking poetry to his attendants? I think, if Shakespeare and the actors did their jobs well, they believed in the emotional truth of the action as it was presented. And it's important for the audience to know which scenes the Duke is watching; that's where the irony comes from--we know something Angelo doesn't. So his disguise can't be good enough to fool the audience--it's much better to let him say he's going to disguise himself, and if anyone in the audience wonders about it, they can imagine that in "real life," his disguise was probably better. It worked for Superman!