> > > 'Coz if so, it's a bad choice to illustrate the timelessness of Shakespeare's work - our Will nicked the plot off someone else...
> >
> > He nicked *everything* off someone else. Very few of Shakespeare's stories weren't based on some prior work. But he's the one that made those stories enduring. Let's face it, the plot to Romeo and Juliet wouldn't be even remotely as ingrained in our culture if he never wrote the specific incarnation of the plot as it appears in Romeo and Juliet. At any rate, to answer your question, the basics of the plot were borrowed, and that was it. No dialogue (as far as I recall) was borrowed, the setting was changed, and there are a few new plot elements, too. Plus, the ending to West Side Story is actually sane.

And viewed contrary-wise, see what splendid drama can be strirred by taking Shakespeare's words and transposing them to a modern setting (I'm thinking of the 1996 Romeo + Juliet in this instance, with pre-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio wooing Claire Danes). Well worth the cost of a video hire.

enile