Just enough text is retained to establish the plot. Here, Zeffirelli has chosen to omit most of the spirited exchange of bawdy puns between the servants in Shakespeare’s dialogue, opting instead, to speed the narrative along to the climax of Scene 1: the outbreak of violence. The dominating colors are reds, browns and yellows as the camera tracks Capulet servants, Sampson and Gregory, as they walk. The director has chosen a setting and atmosphere close to that illustrated in the text.

Soft instrumental music plays under the words of the prologue as the camera transports the viewer into the setting of the busy, noisy, bustling town square on market day.

In Zeffirelli`s film, it is delivered in voice-over as the camera pans across the foggy, misty landscape of Verona at sunrise. The Prologue opens the Act in both film versions, as in Shakespeare’s text.