The action of the play takes place over a few short days, during which time six people die: three of them in violent altercations, two by suicide, and one (Lady Montague) mysteriously, offstage, apparently of grief. It is continually emphasized that the streets of Verona are unsafe and that a riot may break out at any moment, as it does in the first scene. Gregory and Sampson joke about rape and murder before they encounter the Montagues, showing how commonplace and trivial such matters have become. When the Prince arrives to bring a temporary and fragile peace to the streets, he angrily reminds the citizens of Verona that:

Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,

By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,

Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,

And made Verona's ancient citizens

Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,

To wield old partisans, in hands as old,

Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate.

The Prince does not give a time frame within which the last three brawls have occurred, but he makes it clear that they are frequent and he is tired of constantly having to restore order. He also makes the point here that these street fights involve everyone, even the very old, who feebly try to keep the peace.

The atmosphere of Romeo and Juliet is one of violence, heat, and haste. Friar Laurence is always counseling patience and tranquillity, but he is out of step with the rest of the characters and is too slow in his arrangements to save the lives of the lovers. The whirlwind romance of the two protagonists is appropriate to a hot summer in a violent Italian city, where one might die any day. This might happen in any number of ways, including many varieties of inexplicable sickness. Juliet’s parents, after all, are grieved by her apparent sudden death on the night before her wedding, but they do not seem as surprised as one might expect. The passionate intensity of Romeo and Juliet’s love is such that the audience cannot imagine it being sustained for weeks, let alone years, adding to the sense of inevitability in their headlong rush towards death.