Our version of The Provost

Despite Shakespeare’s role of The Provost originally being one male’s role, our version of The Provost will be split to create two Provosts and will be played by two females. This links to the time period that we set the play (1989) because the roles of women in society began to mirror that of men. Physically challenging jobs were still mainly done by men; however other jobs such as administrative and executive type jobs contained both male and female workers. In fact some jobs even had women working above men. 

Shakespeare’s Provost was a male that was devoted to God however our version of The Provost is devoted to the law, making them similar to police-women with some serious fashion sense.

Because of this, I imagine the Provosts' roles to be a couple of women that find empowerment in their sexuality and enjoy their role in society. They are above many of the other characters in the play and don’t stand for any discrimination to their sex unless it is from a higher status such as Angelo.

This also juxtaposes many of the themes in the play such as sexism. With this constantly arising over the course of the play, The Provosts’ are able to represent the struggle but also eventual success of women (similar to the ending of the play, in which the women get a chance to express the truth vocally for the first time).

Image sources from:
http://www.oldpolicecellsmuseum.org.uk/page/history_of_women_in_the_police_force