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During the XIXth century, Shakespeare’s tragedies were performed on many a stage. As they had to be adapted and even modified to fit in with the constraints of the various playhouses, they found themselves entangled in the disputes over stage direction. Dramatic categories were then turned upside down while new performing possibilities were arising, which gave critics and directors food for thought and brought them to ponder over the roots of dramatic illusion, as this theatre was originally played without any scenery: were not the material means used more and more extensively during the XIXth century a hindrance to illusion? Some of them opposed visual to fantasy theatre, the latter calling for the audience’s imagination. In that context, Berlioz’s dramatic symphony Romeo and Juliet can be considered as a means to revive the grass roots of Elizabethan aesthetics.