Can evoking reality through the use of documentary photography in a theatrical context provoke an appropriate audience response?

Abstract

There was once a time when the power of the still image could motivate the masses into action, to call for change and protest. In the image-saturated, media influenced world that we live in today, the power of the still image as a tool for evoking emotion and provoking action is now debatable. Through the means of traditional academic research, this thesis explores and examines the use of the documentary photograph in political theatre. If it is possible to evoke reality through the use of the documentary photograph in a theatrical context, can it provoke an appropriate audience response? This thesis intends to examine the practitioners who first used the still image, the development of the still image into moving image and the modern practitioners and productions that have used the still image as a theatrical tool. Through extensive research into the history of both photography and theatre, into specific theories such as compassion fatigue and debating the change in visual and photographic truth, this thesis will examine the factors that have decreased the 'shock value' in documentary photography, while debating whether audiences can still be provoked into the desired emotion and provoked into the desired action through theatrical means.