Madmen Have No Ears

This classic story starts with a feud between two households, alike in dignity. Romeo, a passionate romantic besotted with Rosaline but rejected by her, meets Juliet, another passionate romantic. The two fall hopelessly in love before discovering their households are mortal enemies. They marry in secret but when Juliet’s cousin Tybalt challenges Romeo and he refuses, Romeo’s best friend takes the challenge and dies for it. Enraged, Romeo fights Tybalt and kills him. Banished from the gated city of Verona for killing Tybalt, and Juliet promised to another by her father, the lovers become desperate to be together or die. A plot hatched by a friendly friar goes awry and Romeo believes the drugged Juliet is truly dead. He journeys to her tomb and kills himself there to join her in paradise. Juliet awakes from her comatose state to discover Romeo dead and kills herself to join him in paradise. Only then do the two households finally bury their hate. What happens in between is Shakespearean.