"These violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die, like fire and power which when they kiss consume." Act 2, scene 6 : Friar Laurence.
             I feel this line sums up what the play is about and shows a clear reflection of the dramatic tension that exists within the two scenes that I will be evaluating, comparing and contrasting the ways in which Shakespeare builds dramatic tension within the two scenes. Act 1 Scene 1 and Act 3 Scene 1.
             The play is mainly set in Northern Italy in the small town of Verona. Romeo and Juliet are the children of two important families, the Montagues and the Capulets, who are engaged in an ancient feud.
             As the audience have just heard the prologue and discovered that the play is all about the fatal tragic love story of the 'star-crossed' Romeo and Juliet who are engaged in an ancient strife between their parents and that this feud is ended when they take their lives. This therefore leaves the audience fascinated not of what happens because it is already known, but the way in which it will happen. Shakespeare gives away the story in the prologue to create tension and anxiety in the audience's minds and leaving them in an inconclusive state of suspense over what they have just been told and wanting to know what is going to happen next happens.
             The play begins like a comedy, with word-play and puns with the witty, boastful and bawdy exchanges of comments between Capulet servants, Sampson and Gregory, who upon meeting Abraham and Balthasar, two Montague servants, embark on a quarrel with them.
             The audience is at this point expecting a great brawl to commence from what they have just heard in the prologue and yet this scene has a very slow buildup of tension between the characters, leaving the audience wandering if this continuos exchange of witty comments will eventually lead into a feud.
             Sampson, as we find out, if full of hate and brutality. He has a one- ...