Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a timeless play that concentrates on many different human emotions and reactions. Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story are alike in many ways, they were both very successful in their day. West Side Story is essentially the same play that was revived in 1961. Like Romeo and Juliet, Tony and Maria are of opposite "families", They fall in love and their love is forbidden. Maria is Puerto Rican and Tony is Irish. In West Side Story they don't get married but they do have a torrid love affair. The hate between the two groups was modernized to racism and not as many of the main characters die in West Side Story.
One of the major differences is that Maria doesn't die, she is left alone. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet kills herself after she finds that Romeo has perished. Another major difference is that in Romeo and Juliet Romeo kills Paris who is supposed to marry Juliet then himself when he thinks that Juliet is dead. In West Side Story, Tony is killed by Chino (the equivalent of Paris) . Romeo and Juliet has a stronger sense