The first violent scene in Romeo and Juliet is in Act 1, scene 1, and is the opening scene of this play. It begins with Sampson and Gregory, Capulet’s servants, who are roaming Verona looking for trouble. They come across Abram and Balthasar two servants form the Montague household. A fight then breaks out but Benvolio, one of the Montague family, tries to stop the fight. Matters are made worse when Tybalt, a Capulet, arrives and sets on Benvolio. The fighting threatens to get out of hand as lord and lady Capulet arrive on the scene along with
Lord and lady Montague. Prince Escalus makes his entrance as the warning parties are separated. In anger he issues a warning that the fighting must stop in case someone gets killed. “Quench the fire of your pernicious rage” the Capulets are ordered to leave with Prince. Lady Montague finds out from Benvolio what has happened and express their pleasure that Romeo was not involved in the conflict. Describes Romeo’s recent weird behaviour like spending so much time on his own and constantly being sad.
Lady and lord Montague ask him to find out the reason of the Romeo being depressed. They leave the room as Romeo enters and then Benvolio finds out that the reason he is sad is that he is in love but the woman he loves does not love him back. Benvolio tries to convince him to forget about her but Romeo refuses to even try.
This scene is important because this is the first fight in the story and this is when Prince warns the Capulet and Montague family that if they carry on fighting that they will be killed. This leads to Romeo being thrown out of Verona he should have been executed but he was given a bit of mercy as he was just retaliating to Tybalt who started the fight in act 3, scene 1.
The second violent scene in this play is Act 3, scene 1. The scene begins with Mercutio, Benvolio and.. , aware that trouble will happen in the hot weather. Tybalt appears looking for Romeo to challenge him to fight. Romeo comes straight from his wedding to Juliet and Tybalt wants a fight but Romeo doesn’t want to fight his cousin in law even though no one, even Tybalt doesn’t know this. Mercutio begins fighting with Tybalt so Romeo tries to break the fight up but Mercutio gets accidentally wounded and he tries to joke it off as a small cut but then Romeo realises it is a life threatening injury. When Mercutio, Romeo goes looking for Tybalt to get revenge for Mercutios death. When he does find him he is so angry that he kills him. He then realises his mistake and runs from where the murder took place. The Prince then comes with the Lord and Lady Capulet and Montague. The Prince hears the version of events from Benvolio and then decides to many lives have been lost and bans Romeo form coming back into Verona ever again.
This scene is important because this is the scene where a friend of the Montague family, Mercutio died and a Capulet family member Tybalt died as well due to the family feud. This is also the scene straight after Romeo and Juliet get married together secretly with out anyone knowing except the nurse and Friar Lawrence.
The third violent scene in the play is Act 3, scene 5. In this scene Romeo and Juliet have just woken up from there first night together, they get dressed and start saying goodbye to each other as it could be the last time they spend with each other. The nurse comes up to Juliet’s room to tell them Lady Capulet is coming to speak to Juliet. Romeo leaves before Lady Capulet arrives at Juliet’s bedroom. When Lady Capulet enters the room he sees Juliet crying and things it is because of the lose of her cousin and she reassures Juliet that Romeo will get what he deserves for the murder. Lady Capulet then goes on about the marriage arrangement with Paris but Juliet refuses straight away to marry Paris.
If I had to direct Act 3, scene 5 I would use a modern setting the stage would look like a modern flat with modern furniture. The audience would be able to see tall high-rise buildings through the window. Lord Capulet would not hit Juliet, but he would shout loudly t her. Juliet would up to him and she would shout back at him. I would do this to show how strong she is in this scene.
The fourth and final violent scene in this play is Act 5, scene 3. In this scene Romeo arrives with Balthasar at the Capulets vault were Juliet is being buried. When they get there they find Paris outside it with a servant Romeo gives a letter to Balthasar for the Montague’s. Romeo is challenged to a fight by Paris which then leads to Paris’s death. Romeo lies down next to Juliet and drinks the potion he had brought. He then drinks it and dies peacefully. Friar Lawrence then enters the vault and sees Juliet waking up. They both realise Romeo has committed suicide. Friar wet to leave and wanted Juliet to come but she wouldn’t, when he leaves she picks up Romeo’s dagger and kills herself. At the end of the scene both the Montague family and the Capulet family join hands and stop there argument.
This is a violent scene due to the fight at the begging of the scene were Paris gets killed. Then Romeo poisons himself and dies then Juliet commits suicide to by stabbing herself. This scene is important because in this scene both Romeo and Juliet die and there families sort out there argument that they had together.
If I had to direct Act 5, scene 3 for the stage, I would keep the killing of Paris but make sure that it is died down a lot and it doesn’t compare to the killings of Romeo and Juliet. the stage would be a dark dusty tomb with dead bodies all around. This would give it a scary and gloomy atmosphere. I would also show how upset Juliet was by having her scream at the top of her voice when she sees that Romeo is dead. This would make the audience think she was going mad by the grief.
I think that this play is very complicated as it has two different emotions involved, love and hate which are complete opposite emotions. But all the violent scenes do prove it is a violent even though it has a lot about love in the play.