Romeo and Juliet

Two servants start a street fight. Before Verona is quiet again, love has made enemies of names and allies of the dead. Romeo Montague enters the Capulets’ feast masked and finds Juliet. Their first conversation makes a sonnet; their families make marriage impossible. A balcony, a friar, a secret wedding, a duel, banishment, and a sleeping potion compress a lifetime into a few days. Around them, Mercutio turns danger into jokes, the Nurse turns memory into talk, and parents discover that authority cannot command time to reverse. The lovers are famous. The speed is the trap. By the time the message fails, the tomb is already open.