Well, when you put it that way

The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is not that they died for their love; it's that they're too young to realize that their love wasn't worth dying for. It's a cautionary tale about the follies and passion of youth, not a love story.

Edit: alright, it's about a lot of things.

I thought it was a cautionary tale about parents who overreact to their children's relationships without realizing that if they just let them be they'll break up on their own.
- I thought it was about the political intricacies of two gnome families that didn't like each other
Isn't it about how hostile families ruin shit for their kids?
- It's been ages since I've actually gone through it but what I remember of it, it goes like this:
  Roseline, the chick Romeo has the hots for, has just come out as asexual. He's not taking this well.
  To cheer him up, his buddies suggest crashing a big party at the Capulet house tonight. Romeo tags along.
  While moping at the party, he encounters Juliet. The two of them hit it off HARD, they both like Blink 182 AND Evanescence, what are the odds?
  Problem: They're respective fathers have some unspecified feud, so when it comes out just who each other are, it's a problem.
  We get a scene where Romeo is in the back yard and Juliet is in her bedroom looking out the window, two back to back speeches about "(s)he's hot, it's a shame our dads hate each other.
  They decide to run off to Vegas and get hitched anyway.
  The parties get separated, and then there is a compounding series of "a thing has happened!" "I know! I'll make it look like I've done something drastic for some damn reason, and I'll send a messenger to tell the other party that I haven't really done that." "A thing has happened, and the messenger carrying a message that would completely inform your decision hasn't arrived yet." "I know, I'll do something drastic for some damn reason!"
  This ends in the two fathers standing over an almost literal pile of corpses to include the titular teenagers, trying to remember what they were even fighting about in the first place.
  Roseline is unscathed.
  Moral of the story: Latency is just as important as bandwidth.
That seems like it still counts as a love story then, or at least "romance" given that that's primarily what it's plot and themes revolve around. What qualifies something to be a love story if not that?
Def not worth dying for

Well of course. It's a tragedy. Not a romance. That's stated upfront even.

It's a tragicomedy. The joke is that love is stupid.
- I don't think that's the joke, beyond a bit of "kids are fucking stupid." There's a lot of commentary out there about it possibly being a satire but it's definitely more tragedy than comedy. Midsummer Night's Dream is the comedy about whirlwind romance.

I only take issue with "read it". Shakespeare wrote plays. They were meant to be performed and seen, not read. "Do you bite your thumb at me?" makes a lot more sense when it's done by a good actor.

If their first introduction to Star Wars was reading the script, kids would hate that, too. Having a script can be useful for analyzing and referencing things--I do have a book of the OG Star Wars trilogy scripts--but it shouldn't be the default way we enjoy it.

I never thought of it like that. You've made me reconsider my positions on Shakespeare.
I think this depends on your level of imagination. When I read books there is definitely a play going on in my head of the events as they unfold.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
IMO even a film adaptation is missing something compared to the experience of a live play, let alone just reading the script.

I was constantly asking why everyone just believed the kids and never assumed they were lying the whole way through The Crucible.

I feel it was made quite clear that the kids testimony was the excuse not the reason.

Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio, Tybalt, Paris, and Lady Montague.

Spoilers!
Literally don't remember half those deaths. I gotta re read that again. Or watch the DiCaprio flick...
- The Baz Luhrmann movie is definitely worth a rewatch.
- Depends on the production. We didn't even have Paris in the play – that I recall – when we did it at college. And Lady Montague didn't have a death, she was just sad at the funeral.
  A play that encompasses the entirety of the original would likely take 3 hours to perform. There's a lot of fat to trim for individual presentation and interpretation (even once saw a Gaza / Israel variant one of my costars was in, that was interesting).

I know it’s a book shop, but it’s still weird to me putting primacy on reading the script of the play rather than watching it in a theatre. It’s like saying “anyone who’s read the Die Hard novelisation knows how hectic the Christmas holidays can be”.

Thing with Shakespeare plays is there's no one alive today who has met anyone who was alive to see a play at The Globe. The scripts we have are just people's lines and the bare minimum stage direction. There's a lot of information missing, and you can interpret it in many ways.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone interpret Hamlet's To Be Or Not To Be speech as a mentally disturbed 20 year old stomping down a hallway muttering to himself under his breath; it's always either this huge proclamation or a weirdly wistful thing. And then, immediately after, two interpretations of the Blasting Ophelia section simultaneously: with and without Hamlet noticing the king and company watching.
Especially since Die Hard is based on a novel.
You're right. But somehow, you've also composed this bookshop's next sign...

If they were related it would be a sweet home Alabama love story.

Thanks for the spoilers.

Any historian worth his salt will tell you that romantic love wasn't invented until the 1800s so Romeo and Juliet can't have been a love story /s

But I heard the songs are good!

"Hey Romeo, you nearly gave me a heart attack" lyric makes sense now

The tv comedy Upstart Crow brilliantly skewers Romeo & Juliet along with Shakespeare. I forget which episode, but it's only 3 seasons and they're all fantastic.

Oh yes, the clever young woman points out a few things, eg the plot is VERY similar to a much earlier story, where the girl is 17, not 13. And Romeo's age is never mentioned. "Bit weird isn't it, Mr Shakespeare?"
Oh yes, the clever young woman points out a few things, eg the plot is VERY similar to a much earlier story, where the girl is 17, not 13. And Romeo's age is never mentioned. "Bit weird isn't it, Mr Shakespeare?"

So, basically a school shooting. Gotcha.

ThatsTheWholePoint.jpg

(This was largely Shakespeare's criticism of young love)