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The feuding houses of Montague and Capulet in old Verona are alike in privilege and station, each have but one child. At the opening of the play Romeo is in love with Rosaline who is an off-stage character. To distract him, his friend Mercutio and cousin Benvolio take him, masked, to a feast in Capulet's house, and he falls in love with Juliet at first sight. When they learn each others' names, love already rules their hearts. The night after the ball Romeo enters Capulet's orchard and overhears Juliet's soliloquy at the balcony; they get engaged to marry. They are secretly married by Friar Laurence who thus hopes to stop the enmity between the two households, but immediately after their secret wedding Tybalt kills Mercutio in a street brawl, Romeo stabs Tybalt to death, and is exiled to Mantua. Meanwhile Juliet's parents set the date for her wedding to Count Paris. Friar Laurence comes to help her, devising a trick with sleeping potion. Juliet is taken for dead and brought to a family vault, but by mischance Friar Laurence's plan fails: his letter doesn't reach Romeo, who instead learns the news of Juliet's death, comes back to Verona, fights Paris and poisons himself. When Juliet awakens and sees him dead, she stabs herself with Romeo's dagger. Over their corpses the two houses are reconciled.
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