ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at examples of two types of documentary vanguard exploration that addressed the postmodern condition: Documentary collage as a form of therapeutic play, and documentary collage as a model for ethical navigation within a community in crisis. According to the liberal view of documentary art, Rumstick Road is not a documentary at all, because its audience can never fully trust that it isn't being lied to; but Rumstick Road is not ultimately guilty of bad faith. The Wooster Group is upfront about what its sources are and how they are using them. Anna Deavere Smith presented a documentary at the 1988 Women in Theater event entitled chlorophyll postmodernism and the mother goddess conversation. Like many participants in the avant-garde culture of spontaneity in the 1950s and 1960s, Smith dissociates authenticity from the everyday experiences conventionally described as 'real life.'.
