Shakespere provides the life of two perspectives of life in Verona throughout the play, one from nobility and one from the servants. We see the feud between the two households in Act 1 Scene 1 from the servants perspective. The opening scene of the play is full of action to create dramatic tension.
Act 1 Scene 1 is set in the streets on Verona, and there are two Capullet servants called Gregory and Sampson and they engage in a arguement concerning the Montague household. Gregory and Sampson then come accross two Montague servants and Sampson insults them and bites his thumb at them, and as a result they have a brawl. This sceneshows the foolishness of the quarrel between the Montagues and Capulets earlt on in the play.
Romeo's cousin, Benvolio is a peacemaker and tries to stop the confrontation but Juliets cousin, Tybalt and another Capulet enter and see Benvolios sword drawn and makes it even worse. The audience is made aware that this is a society where swords are drawn for very little or no reason at all and that the honour of a mans household must be defended at all costs. Finall, the fight is broken up by Prince Escalus, then he forbids any further conflicts and threatens them with the death penalty if they disobbey him.
The brawl ends, but the hatred between the families grow even greater. Benvolio, Lord Montague (Romeo's father) and Lady Montague (Romeo's mother) are the only people still in the scene and Lady Montague is concerned for Romeo because he nhad been seen outside Verona. Romeo is now introduced to the audience and you find out he has an unrequited love for Rosaline. However when he sees Juliet at the Capulet party, before hes even spoken to her, it is clear that he has fallen in love with her and has completely forgotten about Rosaline and says: "Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight? For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night". By saying this, Romeo is telling the audience that he is in love with the woman that he has never spoken to and does'nt even know her name. The audience just think that he is rushing into it without any thought.
The next scene with dramatic tension is Act 3 Scene 1 where Romeos best friend, Mercutio is murdered by Tybalt. This scence starts with Benvolio talking to Mercutio (Romeos best friend) and Benvolio does not want a confrontation with the Capulets and warns Mercutio that everyone is in a bad mood and there is almost certainly going to be a fight between the Montagues and the Capulets.
As Benvolio and Mercutio are speaking, Tybalt and some other Capulet enter looking for Romeo because Romeo was at the Capulet ball and did'nt have an invitation and ever since he saw him at the ball, he has been seeking revenge. Mercutio makes witty replies to Tybalt and tries to provoke but Romeo then enters. Romeo does'nt want to fight Tybalt, so Tybalt tries to provoke Romeo so he will fight him and calls him things like a villain. This is the first time in the play that Tybalt and Romeo had had a face to face confrontation and is a different type of conflict to the one of Act 1 Scene 1. Tybalt desperately wants to fight Romeo and is desperately seeking revenge, however, Romeo refuses to fight him because he had just secretly married Tybalts cousin, Juliet.
Another scene that has high tension is Act 3 Scene 5, where Juliets mother tells Juliet that she is to marry Paris the following Thursday, however, Juliet refuses to marry him and says she is not in love with him, then Juliets father enters and this builds up even more tension and he changes from very calm to very angry the instance he finds out his daughter had refused to marry Paris and starts shouting at her.