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PLAYS: Romeo and Juliet |
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| This recently glorified play tells
the story of two "star-crossed lovers"
who defy their family's feuds and get married. Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet meet at a costumed party at the Capulet estate. They fall instantly in love and decide to marry. Juliet was supposed to wed Paris, a noble her parents had deemed appropriate for her. Juliet did not want to marry Paris, and so confided in her nurse. Her nurse, a large woman, becomes something of a messenger to the two lovers. After speaking with a local priest, the two children (they are only in their teens) become married. The marriage is hidden from the families as they are fighting over an issue both sides have long forgotten. Romeo is so overwhelmed with his love for Juliet that he innocently tells his foe Tybalt of his love for him. Thinking Romeo is mocking him, Tybalt attempts to fight Romeo. Romeo's cousin Mercutio leaps to Romeo's defense, and in the fray, Mercutio is killed. Romeo is so enraged that in a flash of anger, he slashes out and kills Tybalt. When news of the slayings reach the Prince, he takes into consideration Mercutio's death and banishes Romeo from Verona-and, in effect, Juliet. This event tears the two apart. The friar Laurence, however, devises a plan. Juliet is to feign her death, and, when buried, Romeo will awaken her and the two will venture off together. The plan would have worked beautifully, only Romeo never got the letter telling him Juliet's death was staged. He weeps for her, and kills himself in her presence at her family's tomb. Juliet awakens soon after that, and finding her Romeo dead from a lethal poison, uses his knife to take her own life.
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