Romeo and Juliet

The play starts out with Gregory and Sampson. The two of them start a fight with a gang of the Montague boys. The prince comes and breaks up the fight and tells them that the next time the peace is broken that the death penalty would be the punishment.
Then I think it switches over to Romeo and his friends. Romeo is sad because his girlfriend, Rosaline, doesn't want to be with him anymore. Romeo hears that the Capulets will be having a masked ball and he sees that Rosaline is on the list of peoplet that will attend it. He then goes to the ball looking for Rosaline and sees Juliet. He immediately loses all interest in Rosaline and falls in love with Juliet. The two of them meet and Juliet falls in love with him.
Later that night Romeo sneaks over to Juliets balcony and the two of them talk. They decide that they will get married. Romeo then meets with the nurse and she allows him to get married to Juliet. Romeo and Juliet then get married by by Friar Lawerence.
Later on the next day Tybalt slays Mercutio, one of Romeo's best friends. Romeo kill Tybalt in his rage to avenge the fallen Mercutio. Romeo is then banished from Verona by order of the Prince.
Juliet hears about this from the nurse and decides that she and Romeo must meet in secret and run off together. She meets with Friar Lawerence and he comes up with a plan. He gives her a potion that will make her fall into a deep sleep making her appear to be dead. Then Romeo will find her and they will escape.
Friar Lawerence gives Friar John a letter that he is to deliver to Romeo which will tell him the plan. Unfortuantely Friar John fails at giving Romeo the letter and Romeo is unaware of the whole plan.
Juliet had already taken the potion and was taken to the burial grounds by her mourning family. Romeo gets word that Juliet has died from his servant Balthizar and gallops to the burial grounds. He enters. It appears that Juliet is dead. It turns out Paris was in the room too and the two of them fight ending with Romeo killing Paris. Romeo then poisons himself because he can't live without her and falls to the ground dead. Friar Lawerence hears from Friar John that he failed to give Romeo the letter and rushes to the grounds. When he arrives he finds Romeo dead along with Paris. Juliet then wakes up. Friar Lawerence hears a watchman outside and tries to distract him. Juliet finds Romeo dead and can't bare to live without him and kills herself with Romeo's dagger.
After the two are found dead Friar Lawerence tells the prince the whole story. The prince forgives him but yells at the Montagues and the Capulets. The Montagues and the Capulets end the fued between their families.


One of the messages that Shakespeare was trying to put out with this play was that rushed love always ends badly. I think he also wanted to show that fighting never helps solve anything and only makes things worse.

I liked this play because I think it's plot was well made and strong. The characters were well made and had unique characteristics.
One the things I didn't like was when the characters went into a long soliliquey. It got really boring especially when Romeo started talking about Juliet.