A very common practice to convey emotions in audio version of plays is through orchestral music. A more vibrant tone is played to portray rush, anger or a thrilled semblance; A lighter tone to portray relieve, refreshed feelings; A melodramatic one for sadness, sorrow, regret, and so on...
And also the very actors' voices vary the same way. Although in normal visual plays this also applies, in their audio versions, since they can't rely on the visual resources (e.g. highlight the actors' facial expressions), they got to invest an extra effort on the vocal aspect.