At the beginning of the scene the mood within the characters is joyful which I think would also transmit to the audience. When Romeo and Juliet are in bed and Juliet does a ‘u’ turn on Romeo and tells him to leave, “It is, it is, hie hence be gone away.”
This would have a comic affect on the audience, as would when the nurse come rushing or, as it says in Shakespeare’s stage directions hastily, and gets Romeo out of the room. This aspect of comedy would appeal to the audience and make them enjoy the play more. This could also leave the audience in suspense asking them selves the question ‘Will Romeo get out in time?’ This also shows that Romeos and Juliet’s relationship is on a knife-edge, it is very secretive and very delicate.
From that point where Romeo leaves the happiness of the scene dies down, but a climax gradually rises. As Lady Capulet enters joyful and happy, then Juliet contradicts or repels her mothers words “He shall not make me a joyful bride.”
This suggests that tension is rising between characters and a conflict is soon to arise.
When Lady Capulet says to Juliet “You can tell it to your father.” The way this phrase is worded would sound like a threat to scare Juliet. Some audience members would pick up on this, and become quite tense, as if they know there will be trouble ahead.
Again, like many parts of this scene and the play, the audience may find themselves asking a question like ‘What will happen to Juliet?’ Juliet is also rarely called by her name. Her mother but mainly her father does this, Her mother and father treat like a child but then they expect her to embark on a life long commitment. This could make the audience feel slightly intimidated by Lord Capulet.
During he argument with her father, Juliets language towards her parents changes, at the start it is polite and pleading but then it moves on to be more angry, in which she makes threats towards her parents to perhaps scare them, maybe bully them into agreeing with her. This would make the audience think and feel different about Juliet. From seeing all sweetness and nice, to being angry and aggressive, it would make them see that there is another side to Juliet.
The atmosphere in this scene changes throughout, and I think this will also have a knock on effect on how the audience feel. It would probably affect a modern day audience differently to an Elizabethan audience because times have changed and the way we view things in this day and age is different to then.
The whole scene and a lot of the play is all about dramatic irony. The audience knows more than the actors or characters in the play. This will have the effect on the audience by making them feel slightly more edgy during the play, because they know what is perhaps coming next, but are not quite sure, and the characters do not. This could also have a bad effect on the audience because if they roughly know what is going to happen next it will make the play boring and no fun to watch, this is why I think Shakespeare has thought carefully about how much information during parts of the play he gives out to the audience, therefore this bad effect mentioned above does not happen.
Another thing that is very effective during the scene is the amount o people on stage and the amount of people talking, because even is someone is there on stage but not talking they still play an important role. They still have an effect on the situation. This produces climaxes and anticlimaxes.
At the end of the scene where Juliet has her soliloquy, this will make the emotions within the audience run quite high; they will be left possibly thinking and feeling several things. ‘What will happen to Romeo?’ and ‘What will Juliet do?’
To conclude I would say that in this scene Shakespeare uses a lot of dramatic irony. This gives the audience a better feel for the play, and it also makes it easier for them to follow the play.