History Theatre / RomeoAndJuliet

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse Where the hell does Benvolio go after Mercutio dies?

* ForegoneConclusion: Even if by some strange power, you've never heard the plot of this thing, it's stated in the very beginning that the title characters die online '''six''' of the Prologue, to be precise.

* SmallRoleBigImpact: Gregory and Sampson, two servants of the Capulets, only appear at the very start of the play, but they rile up the feud by taunting the Montague servants, and the ensuing brawl leads Escalus to declare that further breach of the peace will be punished by death. A third nameless servant whom Lord Capulet sends to invite people to his house for supper ends up crossing paths with Romeo and unwittingly invites him to attend; Romeo goes in the hopes of seeing Rosaline, but ends up meeting Juliet...

* SmallRoleBigImpact: Gregory and Sampson, two servants of the Capulets, only appear at the very start of the play, but they rile up the feud by taunting the Montague servants, and the ensuing brawl leads Escalus to declare that further breach of the peace will be punished by death.

* RightForTheWrongReasons: After Tybalt's death, Lady Capulet is right that Benvolio's "affection makes him false; he speaks not true." But it wasn't because Benvolio's affection for Romeo made him invent an excuse to kill Tybalt; it was was his affection for Mercutio that made him downplay Mercutio's aggression against Tybalt.

** When Romeo asks who Juliet the Nurse's answer ends her saying "he that can lay hold of her shall have the chinks." What she means is that whoever marries Juliet (gets hold of her) would be rich and have fancy porcelain, which is what "chinks" is referring to. But nowadays it's only seen as a racial slur against east Asians.

* GenreBusting/GenreShift: Unusual for its time in combining comedy and tragedy. A typical comedy contains bawdy humor, farce, and young lovers who live HappilyEverAfter, despite the interference of the older generation. A typical tragedy contains unquiet political figures, and drama, a TragicHero who makes [[TragicMistake mistakes]] and dies in the end, despite his best efforts. ''Romeo and Juliet'' explores all of this, [[{{Dissimile}} except]] [[DownerEnding the happily-ever-after part.]] Mercutio's death in Act III marks the definitive shift from comedy to tragedy.

* {{GenreBusting}}/{{GenreShift}}: Unusual for its time in combining comedy and tragedy. A typical comedy contains bawdy humor, farce, and young lovers who live HappilyEverAfter, despite the interference of the older generation. A typical tragedy contains unquiet political figures, and drama, a TragicHero who makes [[TragicMistake mistakes]] and dies in the end, despite his best efforts. ''Romeo and Juliet'' explores all of this, [[{{Dissimile}} except]] [[DownerEnding the happily-ever-after part.]] Mercutio's death in Act III marks the definitive shift from comedy to tragedy.

* TooDumbToLive: It's probably easier to list the characters who ''don't'' act like idiots.

Has been adapted for silver screen numerous times, perhaps most famously by the Italian director Creator/FrancoZeffirelli in 1968 and Baz Luhrmann's zany 1996 adaptation which moved the story to a modern setting.

* ''Roméo et Juliette'', a 1839 "dramatic symphony" in seven movements (choral and instrumental scenes) by Hector Berlioz.

* ''Film/WilliamShakespearesRomeoAndJuliet'', a somewhat polarizing update directed by Creator/BazLuhrmann starring Claire Danes and Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio. It keeps Shakespeare's text but dramatically reframes it in a late-1990s setting in Mexican-influenced Southern California ("Verona Beach"). The duels and dialogue about them are retained by naming the characters' gun models after various types of bladed weapons instead (e.g. "Sword 9mm class").

* ''Private Romeo'', a film which uses an all male cast and the original dialogue of the play as a commentary on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Romeo is a cadet desperate to get into West Point and Juliet is the new boy to the military academy he attends. [[spoiler:Due to DADT, the school's staff finding out about the fact that the two are in love serves as their 'death;' no one actually dies in the film, but they'll both be kicked out of school and any hope of continuing their military careers (including Romeo's dream of West Point) is finished.]]
* ''Theatre/RomeoEtJulietteDeLaHaineALamour'', a French musical by Gerard Presgurvic, which has played in more or less similar format in Canada, Mexico, Japan and various countries throughout Europe and in a much DarkerAndEdgier Hungarian adaptation.

* ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mn9Am7L4sA Romeo Va Julietta Yohud Lan'atlangan Sevgi]]'', an Uzbek film from 2006, which loosely resets the story in contemporary Tashkent.

* Often done as a ShowWithinAShow when a film production or SchoolPlay is needed (because it's a play that most people, even those who have ''never'' read Shakespeare, are familiar with). If at least one of the two leads is a major character, expect ShipTease. This includes an episode of ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'', an episode of ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'', two episodes of ''Manga/KOn'', the second {{OVA}} to ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura'', and an ongoing arc in the first part of Season 12 of ''Series/{{Degrassi}}''. An episode of ''WesternAnimation/SabrinaTheAnimatedSeries'' is about auditioning for the play (and features a conjured up version of Romeo to give Sabrina some coaching).

* ''Film/UpsideDown'', starring Jim Sturgess and Kirsten Dunst. A science fiction retelling where the two clans are replaced with inhabitants of two planets tightly revolving around each other. Where each person is only affected by the gravity of his or her birth planet.

* The radio drama featuring Music/AKB48, known as "Watashitachi no Monogatari", did their own version of Romeo and Juliet, with the two aces of Music/SKE48, Matsui Rena and Matsui Jurina, as the main pair. Not only do they change the characters names (basing them more of their respective members names), but they also give it a much happier end. As to be expected, this broadcast pleased lots of [=WMatsui=] fans.

* ''The Spruces And The Pines'', an Creator/{{ION}} Channel Christmas movie, which has two young people falling in love despite the long-running feud between their families, who happen to own rival Christmas tree farms.

* "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E13ThePerfectPear The Perfect Pear]]", a ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episode that explores the question, What if Romeo and Juliet had lived to have kids?
* ''Prince of Shadows'' a 2014 novel by Creator/RachelCaine, takes a HeroOfAnotherStory approach, with Romeo's cousin Benvolio and Juliet's cousin Rosaline as the POV characters. Also adds a layer of horror by supposing that catastrophic ending of the play was because [[spoiler:the intensity of Romeo and Juliet's love was because the "plague on both your houses" was a backfiring ''curse'', and Mercutio's line was him trying to warn Romeo. In the final climax of the book, as soon as Romeo and Juliet both die the curse falls on Benvolio and Rosaline as the next heirs in line. Their already being in love makes the difference in their feelings very clear, and illustrates that Romeo and Juliet were indeed doomed from the start.]]

* ThirteenIsUnlucky: Juliet is two weeks away from her 14th birthday, and does not live to see it.

* AnAesop: Don't hold a grudge. The Montagues and the Capulets end up getting multiple members of their own families killed for this. Related to this is the message that "parents will pass on their mistakes to their children." The Prince points out how it was ultimately the feud that drove Romeo and Juliet to the grave.

* AndCallHimGeorge: Romeo and Juliet muse on wishing that he were a dove belonging to her, until she predicts that this would happen.

* AttackAttackRetreatRetreat: Act III, Scene 5 opens with Juliet (presumably still sleepy) begging the now-banished Romeo to stay awhile since it can't be morning already. Romeo acquiesces and stays, but then Juliet realizes that it really ''is'' morning and that Romeo needs to get the heck out of Dodge, at which point she switches to shooing him out of her room.

* BettyAndVeronica: Juliet's decision between her two suitors. Paris courts her in the 'proper' way, by asking her father's permission. Romeo falls in love with her, marries her in secret and kills her cousin.

** Romeo begins his famous "But soft ... " speech comparing Juliet to the sun and moon, and ends by straight up calling her an angel.

* BusCrash: Lady Montague, who has an important role in the first scene, then disappears almost entirely until the last scene where Montague mentions she died offstage. Her death serves to even the death toll to two from every house -- Romeo and Lady Montague, Juliet and Tybalt, and [[HufflepuffHouse Mercutio and Paris]], who belong to the Prince's family.

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: As in the prologue, the internal revelation the strife was reconcilable comes too late. The entire back-half of the plot is also avoidable if Romeo and/or Juliet disclose their marriage. Their families may not ''like'' this, but this is Italy and the marriage is a Catholic sacrament, which is irrevocable. Shakespeare's audience likely found this to be character blindness as well. The Church of England existed with Catholicism banned as a consequence of the latter's doctrine of marriage.

* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: Most modern adaptations have the various houses wear outfits of the same color to help the audience keep track of who they belong to. For instance, the Capulets wear red, the Montagues wear blue, and the Prince’s house wear either earthen colors, yellow, or purple.

* CycleOfRevenge: What's perpetuating the feud.

* DeathByDespair: Lady Montague, who died after learning of Romeo's exile. Also the presumed cause of Juliet's first "death" by those who don't know about the Friar's potion.

* DiabolusExMachina: Repeatedly. The line about "star-crossed lovers" in the opening narration is a LampshadeHanging; the stars -- meaning Fate -- are going to make sure everyone ends up miserable. (Specifically, the final tragedy plays out only because the Friar is temporarily detained by a plague quarantine, and thus is unable to get to Romeo and tell him the truth about Juliet's fake suicide.)

* DoubleEntendre: Almost every one of Mercutio's lines, overlapping with GetTheeToANunnery. Romeo, Juliet, the Nurse, and even Lord Capulet all get in on the action at some point.
* DownerEnding: There is the glimpse of a BittersweetEnding, as the rival families finally reconcile their differences, but two statues raised in pure gold above Verona are a poor compensation for the loss of their children, and everyone knows this. Some adaptations do away with the reconciliation altogether, and end with both families simply feeling guilt over the tragedy without actually ending their feud.

* EmoTeen: Romeo is this at first, moping around and reciting emo poetry because of his unrequited love for Rosaline. He improves upon meeting Juliet, but when he has to be separated from her, he gets even worse than he was at the beginning. It is also worth noting that the metaphors Romeo uses to express his infatuation with Rosaline were ''very'' over-used cliches in Shakespeare's time. But as soon as he starts describing Juliet, his poetry gets far more original and interesting.

** The Prince and the Nurse. (Although [[AllThereInTheScript on the character list]] the Prince's name is given as "Escalus" and Capulet calls the Nurse "Angelica" at one point.)

** Rosaline and Juliet. Rosaline is aloof, quiet, sworn off marriage and pleasure of flesh, and is uninterested with Romeo, while Juliet is talkative, interested in Romeo, and wants a relationship with Romeo right after she met him.
** Paris to Romeo. He is from nobility, have traits the Capulet's find desirable for marrying their daughter and follows the rules of society. Romeo ignores normal standards and approaches Juliet directly rather than through family, and could not fall in love with Juliet because he is a Montague. They also both have different reasons for wanting to be with Juliet, with Romeo wanting to be with Juliet because she’s attractive and Paris wanting to marry Juliet to have connections to money and power.
** Nurse and Lady Capulet. The Nurse is strict, loving, warm, and encourages Juliet to make own choices, while Lady Capulet is not close with Juliet, stiff, cool towards Juliet, and only cares about how Juliet will make the family look to others.
** Tybalt and Benvolio: Tybalt: Tybalt is prone to act fast/violently if felt dishonoured. Benvolio tries to soothe temper, is calm, and is a mediator.
** Romeo and Mercutio. Romeo falls in love constantly, keeps to himself more, while Mercutio is witty, outgoing, and cynical about love.
** Lord and Lady Montague are this to Lord and Lady Capulet. Lord and Lady Montague are close to Romeo and care about him and do not seem to force him to do things he does not want to. Lord and Lady Capulet are not close to Juliet, abuse and manipulate her, and threatens to disown her if she doesn't comply with what they want. Lord Montague is a JerkWithAHeartOfGold, who may be an aggressive chap, but still a loving father and husband, while Lord Capulet on the other hand is FauxAffablyEvil and is for the most part rotten on the inside.
* ForegoneConclusion: Even if, by some strange power, you've never heard the plot of this thing, it's stated in the very beginning that the title characters die on line '''six''' of the Prologue, to be precise.
* ForgottenFallenFriend: Romeo is heartbroken about Mercutio's death . . . for as long as it takes him to kill Tybalt in a revenge-fueled rage. After Tybalt dies, Mercutio is forgotten, Romeo expresses far more grief over Tybalt's death than Mercutio's.

* FourthDateMarriage: The titular characters get married less than 24 hours after meeting, and plan their marriage the night they meet. The entire plot unfolds over all of four days.

* TheFriendsWhoNeverHang: Juliet reacts to the news of Tybalt's death with heartbreak and tears over her beloved cousin. The Nurse exclaims that Tybalt was her best friend. Tybalt never spent time on-stage with either of them.

* TheGhost: We hear ''quite'' a lot about Rosaline, Romeo's unrequited love at the start of the play, but she never makes it onscreen. According to the guest list, she is in attendance at Capulet's feast, and some productions make her a more obvious presence there.

** Benvolio decides that the only way to cure Romeo's pining for Rosaline is for the two of them (plus Mercutio) to crash Lord Capulet's party in the hopes that Romeo will realise that there's other fish in the sea. The plan works perfectly and Romeo ends up completely forgetting about Rosaline. Unfortunately, it's because the party allowed him the opportunity to meet Juliet, thus setting in motion all the tragedies that follow.

** When Romeo asks who Juliet was the Nurse's answer ends her saying "he that can lay hold of her shall have the chinks." What she means is that whoever marries Juliet (gets hold of her) would be rich and have fancy porcelain, which is what "chinks" is referring to. But nowadays it's only seen as a racial slur against east Asians.

* HufflepuffHouse: There's actually a ''third'' clan -- the Prince's family (historically, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaliger Scaligers]] or Della Scala -- the Prince's name, Escalus, is a Latin version of this), consisting of the Prince himself, Mercutio, and Paris. The Prince loses his two kinsmen over the course of the play too, leading him to say in the final scene that he has also been punished for the violence in Verona alongside the Capulets and Montagues.

'''Sampson:''' I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.\\

** Mercutio all over the place.
*** He disdains Romeo for being a victim of love, even though much of Mercutio's own dialogue implies he is himself bitter over a past hurt.

** Lord Capulet as well. He chides the "saucy" Tybalt for his [[HairTriggerTemper dramatic reaction]] to Romeo's infiltration of the feast, yet explodes in an even more dramatic fashion when Juliet declines the marriage he arranged for her.

* IdleRich: Romeo, as the heir of a rich merchant family. Mercutio, a noble, as well.
* IgnoredConfession: Juliet confesses to her mother that she wishes to marry Romeo rather than Paris, but Lady Capulet assumes that Juliet just means she is so opposed to wedding Paris she rather would marry anyone else, even her cousin's killer.

* InLoveWithLove: Romeo, particularly with Rosaline, and its implied she's just the latest girl he's crushing on.
* InspirationNod: In Act II, Mercutio sarcastically disses several mythical {{Love Interest}}s, including Thisbe, heroine of ''Pyramus and Thisbe'', a much older version of the ''Romeo and Juliet'' story.

* LaserGuidedKarma: In the final scene, the Prince considers all of the tragedies that befell Capulet, Montague, and himself to be their just deserts for their failure to stop the ancient grudge:

** Tybalt/[[SpellMyNameWithAnS Tybert/Tibert]] is the name of the hot-blooded prince of cats from the folk tales of Reynard the Fox. Tybalt is frequently made fun of for this, and is indeed hot-blooded.
** Benvolio means "Good will" and he is the most reasonable of the Montagues.

*** ''Mercurial'' itself is derived from the name of Mercury, messenger god of the Roman pantheon. As a member of the house of Escalus, Mercutio is at least poised to serve as a messenger between the warring houses.

* MemorialStatue: Lord Montague announces at the end that he'll raise one to Juliet, as a gesture of reconciliation between the families.

* NoAntagonist: Tybalt acts as antagonist for a while, but he dies in Act III of a five-act work. Capulet can be seen as the antagonist, as he would be were the play a comedy, but it's ultimately implied that the feud and pointless hatred themselves were to blame for the play's conflict rather than any one person.
* NotSoAboveItAll: Benvolio acts as though he is above the house conflict and will not takes sides. But in his account of the duel in Act III, he makes it sound as though Tybalt challenged Mercutio, when in fact it was the reverse, which has a significant effect on the Prince's judgement on the affair.

* OhCrap: Friar Lawrence gets one when Friar John returns with his letter in tow, realizing that his plan to get the lovers back together just went to hell in a hand basket.
* PaperThinDisguise: Romeo, Benvolio, Mercutio, and the other Montague revelers waltz into their arch-enemy's ball wearing masks. No one is recognized save Romeo, and then only because he talks.

* PopCulturalOsmosis: Probably the main reason people think Romeo and Juliet are the model for a good relationship, and probably the reason a surprising number of people forget the ending in the prologue. Ironically, the title has become a kind of shorthand for idolizing the very behaviors it can be argued to make fun of.

-->'''Romeo:''' Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.\\

** Lord Montague, as opposed to Lord Capulet, [[NiceGuy is never shown to be bad in any way]], and shows genuine concern for Romeo in the first scene.

* ReplacementGoldfish: Juliet for the nurse's deceased daughter. Also probably Tybalt for Capulet's deceased children, and/or the Capulets for Tybalt's dead parents. While never explicitly stated to be dead, his parents never show up, and when he dies himself, Lord and Lady Capulet do all the mourning for them.

* SerialRomeo: Romeo's object of hopeless affection changes on a dime in the play, and it's implied he's done this sort of thing before. He knew Juliet for about a ''minute'', and was already making out with her.

* TakeAThirdOption: Lady Capulet demands that Romeo be executed for killing Tybalt. Lord Montague professes that since Tybalt killed Mercutio, Romeo was acting justly. The prince compromises by subjecting Romeo to exile from Verona with the threat of a death penalty if he comes back.

* ThreateningMediator: In Act I Scene 1, The Prince of Verona enters in the middle of a brawl that includes servants from Capulet and Montague, the hot-blooded Capulet heir Tybalt and his cronies against the Montague youths, and the heads of the houses. The Prince commands them to stand down, "on pain of death." At the end of the scene, he makes it clear to the heads of the houses that if another brawl erupts, punishing their servants won't be enough: the Lords themselves will be executed.
* TogetherInDeath: Romeo and Juliet, who actually end lying side by side (or at least sufficiently close) in the middle of the Capulet mausoleum.

* ATragedyOfImpulsiveness: The entire romance is a string of action on impulse, and the the plot really starts to go south when Romeo kills Tybalt without thinking first.

* TragicMistake: Romeo's killing of Tybalt in vengeance for Mercutio, leading to his banishment. Everything goes straight to hell for both lovers because of it.

* UnbuiltTrope: The story is nowadays shorthand for StarCrossedLovers, especially of the teenage / young adult romance variety or "Romeo and Juliet + X" high concept. The romance itself in the story is very thin, immature and ultimately quite tragic due to the extremely young ages of the characters and the ExtremelyShortTimespan. Almost all modern works invoking the tropes or backbone of the story develop much greater depth and a greater focus on the merits of the impossible romance rather than the tragic car wreck of it.

** Even between the Nurse and Friar Lawrence, this trope is applicable -- although in a darker way. Friar Lawrence sets about making tons of risky plans that, although well-intentioned, have a thousand ways to go wrong. The Nurse tells Juliet to be sensible and marry Paris, and give up Romeo for dead, because it involves less risk and heartache. She's also looking after Juliet's wellbeing, because if she was impregnated by Romeo, she may pass the child as Paris'.
* TheWorldsExpertOnGettingKilled: Mercutio gives a very detailed description of how skilled a swordsman Tybalt is. He later starts up a fight with Tybalt himself, and ends up getting killed by him.

* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: Very commonly seen to distinguish the two families and highlight how irreconcilable they are. In the 2013 film adaption, the Montagues wear red and Capulets wear blue.
* CompositeCharacter: Many adaptations have Benvolio take the roles that random Montagues take in the final acts, since otherwise he disappears without explanation.

* DemotedToExtra: Most adaptations seem to forget Paris. His death is one of the most frequently omitted sequences, even though it makes a nonsense of the Prince's "I have lost a brace of kinsmen" lines. (This may be because Romeo murders him, which is odd coming from the hero.)

* ''Rosaline'': a 2022 comedic film retelling the story from the point of view of Romeo's jilted RomanticFalseLead, Juliet's cousin Rosaline.

* ''Rosaline'' (upcoming): a comedic film retelling the story from the point of view of Romeo's jilted RomanticFalseLead, Juliet's cousin Rosaline.

In other words: BoyMeetsGirl. It's LoveAtFirstSight. But Boy and Girl are members of FeudingFamilies. [[FourthDateMarriage Boy secretly marries Girl]]. Boy's friend is murdered by Girl's cousin, so Boy kills Girl's cousin in a fit of rage, then skips town. Girl agrees to [[FakingTheDead dangerous plot]] to avoid an ArrangedMarriage set up by her parents. Plot [[GoneHorriblyRight goes horribly right]]. Boy, [[PoorCommunicationKills hearing of Girl's "death,"]] returns to town and [[DrivenToSuicide kill himself for real]] at her grave. Girl, [[MissedHimByThatMuch waking and discovering this]], kill herself in turn. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Grief-stricken]] families reconcile. TheEnd!

It's hard to imagine there are many who don't know the plot to ''Romeo and Juliet'', perhaps the most famous work of Creator/WilliamShakespeare. But just in case, here's a quick outline:

* ''{{WesternAnimation/Pocahontas}}'' depicts a highly fictionalised romance between Pocahontas and John Smith in the midst of an upcoming war. The film was actually pitched as "Romeo & Juliet in 17th century Virginia". Notably it's one of Disney's only films to have a BittersweetEnding (albeit where the lovers simply don't end up together as opposed to dying tragically).

In other words: BoyMeetsGirl. It's LoveAtFirstSight. But Boy and Girl are members of FeudingFamilies. [[FourthDateMarriage Boy secretly marries Girl]]. Boy's friend is murdered by Girl's cousin, so Boy kills Girl's cousin in a fit of rage, then skips town. Girl agrees to [[FakingTheDead dangerous plot]] to avoid an ArrangedMarriage set up by her parents. Plot [[GoneHorriblyRight goes horribly right]]. Boy, [[PoorCommunicationKills hearing of Girl's "death,"]] returns to town and [[DrivenToSuicide kills self for real]] at her grave. Girl, [[MissedHimByThatMuch waking and discovering this]], kills self in turn. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Grief-stricken]] families reconcile. TheEnd!

What, can't read Shakespeare? Fine. In troper's terms:

BoyMeetsGirl. It's LoveAtFirstSight. But Boy and Girl are members of FeudingFamilies. [[FourthDateMarriage Boy secretly marries Girl]]. Boy's friend is murdered by Girl's cousin, so Boy kills Girl's cousin in a fit of rage, then skips town. Girl agrees to [[FakingTheDead dangerous plot]] to avoid an ArrangedMarriage set up by her parents. Plot [[GoneHorriblyRight goes horribly right]]. Boy, [[PoorCommunicationKills hearing of Girl's "death,"]] returns to town and [[DrivenToSuicide kills self for real]] at her grave. Girl, [[MissedHimByThatMuch waking and discovering this]], kills self in turn. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Grief-stricken]] families reconcile. TheEnd!

* ''[[ComicBook/MonicasGang Mônica e Cebolinha: No Mundo de Romeu e Julieta]]''[[labelnote:Rough Translation]]''Monica and Jimmy Five: In the World of Romeo and Juliet''[[/labelnote]]: A 1979 live-action adaptation of the play with costumed actors portraying Monica and Jimmy Five as the titular lovers. Like most kid-friendly adaptations, the play ends with both lovers alive and together and both families ending the rivalry for good. Was adapted into theatre in 1978, Direct-to-Video and TV in 1979, and again made a stage play in 2013 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ''Monica's Gang'' comic series.

* AdultFear: The two main characters, who are just kids (Juliet is ''13'' in the play -- Romeo's age isn't given, but he's most likely in his mid-to-late teens), take their own short lives for each other. While many people may have thought it romantic or stupid when they were teenagers, it's pretty unsettling to any parent (particularly since teen suicide is a far more publicized issue today that it ever was in previous decades).

* DrivenToSuicide: The two leads, each by the other's ostensible death.

* ''[[ComicBook/MonicasGang Mônica e Cebolinha: No Mundo de Romeu e Julieta]]''[[labelnote:Rough Translation]]''Monica and Jimmy Five: In the World of Romeo and Juliet''[[/labelnote]]: A 1979 live-action adaptation of the play with costumed actors portraying Monica and Jimmy Five as the titular lovers. Like most kid-friendly adaptations, the play ends with both lovers alive and together. Was adapted into theatre in 1978, Direct-to-Video and TV in 1979, and again made a stage play in 2013 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ''Monica's Gang'' comic series.

** Nurse and Lady Capulet. The Nurse is strict, loving, warm,and encourages Juliet to make own choices, while Lady Capulet is not close with Juliet, stiff, cool towards Juliet, and only cares about how Juliet with make the family look to others.
** Tybalt and Benvolio: Tybalt:Tybalt is prone to act fast/violently if felt dishonoured.Benvolio tries to soothe temper, is calm, and is a mediator.

* ''Prince of Shadows'' a 2014 novel by Creator/RachelCaine, takes a HeroOfAnotherStory approach, with Romeo's cousin Benvolio and Juliet's cousin Rosaline as the POV characters. Also adds a layer of horror by supposing that catastrophic ending of the play was because [[spoiler: the intensity of Romeo and Juliet's love was because the "plague on both your houses" was a backfiring ''curse'', and Mercutio's line was him trying to warn Romeo. In the final climax of the book, as soon as Romeo and Juliet both die the curse falls on Benvolio and Rosaline as the next heirs in line. Their already being in love makes the difference in their feelings very clear, and illustrates that Romeo and Juliet were indeed doomed from the start.]]
* Mercedes Lackey's ''Closer to Home'' (part of The Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar) has the plot revolve around expies of the Montagues and Capulets, told mostly from the point of view of the exasperated Heralds trying to keep them from killing each other. Provides quite a few TakeThat s at the Montague and Capulet families in general, and the Nurse to boot. [[spoiler: The Romeo expy turns out to be an unrepentant psychopath, who plans to marry the Juliet expy and kill off everyone else in their families in [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident one fell]] [[KillItWithFire horrific swoop]], so he can inherit all the wealth and property.]]

* AdultFear: The two main characters, who are just kids (Juliet is ''thirteen'' in the play - Romeo's age isn't given, but he's most likely in his mid-to-late teens), take their own short lives for each other. While many people may have thought it romantic or stupid when they were teenagers, it's pretty unsettling to any parent (particularly since teen suicide is a far more publicized issue today that it ever was in previous decades).
* AgeLift: In the original poem, Juliet and Romeo were both about sixteen, while in the Bandello novel, she was 18 and he was 20. The play knocks Juliet's age down to thirteen, but most adaptations bring her back up to sixteen.

* BusCrash: Lady Montague, who has an important role in the first scene, then disappears almost entirely until the last scene where Montague mentions she died offstage. Her death serves to even the death toll to two from every house--Romeo and Lady Montague, Juliet and Tybalt, and [[HufflepuffHouse Mercutio and Paris]], who belong to the Prince's family.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: It can be hard to tell, but yes, some of the talk about Juliet's marriage is meant to come off as a sign of how far gone the Veronans are. For someone as rich and influential as a Capulet, thirteen would have been a normal age for betrothal or marriage. "Younger than she are happy mothers made", however, was ''not'' normal--while such things certainly happened, it was not looked on as a good thing, being seen as short-sighted and rather cruel at ''best'' (people knew it could either kill the girl or render her infertile, as in the case of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Margaret_Beaufort#Second_marriage Margaret Beaufort]], Elizabeth I's great-grandmother).
* DiabolusExMachina: Repeatedly. The line about "star-crossed lovers" in the opening narration is a LampshadeHanging; the stars - meaning Fate - are going to make sure everyone ends up miserable. (Specifically, the final tragedy plays out only because the Friar is temporarily detained by a plague quarantine, and thus is unable to get to Romeo and tell him the truth about Juliet's fake suicide.)

* HufflepuffHouse: There's actually a ''third'' clan--the Prince's family (historically, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaliger Scaligers]] or Della Scala- the Prince's name, Escalus, is a Latin version of this), consisting of the Prince himself, Mercutio, and Paris. The Prince loses his two kinsmen over the course of the play too, leading him to say in the final scene that he has also been punished for the violence in Verona alongside the Capulets and Montagues.

* IdiotBall: Friar Lawrence fails to consider the one most likely factor interfering with Juliet's faked suicide - Romeo perhaps not getting the message. This is ''exactly'' what happens.

*** Although it is unlikely that Shakespeare knew the element mercury by that name, it connects in several ways: mercury is notable for its liquid state at room temperature--neither a solid nor a gas (neither a Montague nor a Capulet); it is used both to measure temperature and to form highly reflective surfaces, just as Mercutio's mood measures and reflects the current state of house tensions; and it is toxic after prolonged exposure--like Mercutio.

** The Nurse to Juliet--[[EtTuBrute until]] [[ConflictingLoyalty she isn't]].
** Friar Lawrence to Romeo--[[AdviceBackfire until he isn't]].

** Even between the Nurse and Friar Lawrence, this trope is applicable - although in a darker way. Friar Lawrence sets about making tons of risky plans that, although well-intentioned, have a thousand ways to go wrong. The Nurse tells Juliet to be sensible and marry Paris, and give up Romeo for dead, because it involves less risk and heartache. She's also looking after Juliet's wellbeing, because if she was impregnated by Romeo, she may pass the child as Paris'.