Theatre of Chaos: Beyond Absurdism, into Orderly Disorder by William W. Demastes (review)

Book Reviews WILLIAM W. DEMASTES. Theatre o[ Chaos: Beyond Absllrdism, into Orderly Disorder. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, '997. Pp. '90, illustrated. $54·95· It seems that in recent .years the attention of critical theory has been slowly moving away from Marxism, structuralism, phenomenology. semiotics, feminism , and deconstruction, instead finding a possible epistemological inspiration in other disciplines, of which chaos theory is perhaps the most prominent. So far, in the humanities, the study of non-linear dynamics has been employed to analyse contemporary critical methodologies (N. Katherine Hayles) and period styles (Patrick Brady) and to shed new light on ancient philosophy (Jean Guitton). Theatre o[Chaos follows this trend and attempts to prove that chaos theory is also useful in helping us understand drama and theatre. For someone who claims that the use of chaos as a paradigm is "revolutionary because it asks us to see the world from a different metaphorical stance" (10), Demastes's methodological approach is quite literal: he first succinctly summarizes the main theoretical precepts of certain elements of modem science (quantum physics, thennodynamic entropy, turbulence theory, fractal geometry, but, interestingly enough, not teleonomy) and then systematically applies them to a number of dramatic texts. The main premise of his argument is that characters in contemporary drama, but also in some classical plays. no longer behave in a predictable, linear manner, but instead faithfully reflect the nonlinear disorder of the world around them. Because of this. their actions are, in Demastes's opinion, best analysed through chaos theory. Just as the behaviour of subatomic particles or turbulent phenomena cannot be described through Newtonian mechanics, so the logic of modem and postmodem characters cannot be explained through Aristotelian dramatic criticism. The chief strength of the chaos theory-based analysis of drama is that it is no longer Modern Drama, 43: I (Spring 2000) 130 Book Reviews 13 1 founded on the belief that order is more aesthetically pleasing than disorder and that the two are mutually exclusive, that it is instead capable of finding "order in chaos and chaos in order" (58), Demastes illustrates his concept of the theatre of chaos by analysing several dramatic texts. In addition to the two most obvious choices - Tom Stoppard's Hapgood. with its connection to Richard Feynman's lectures, and Arcadia. with its reliance on James Gleick's best-seller - his survey also addresses some less representative examples. from an interpretation of Willy Loman's quantum personality and an investigation of Hamlet's conscious choice between order, disorder, and orderly disorder, to a comparison between the characters' awareness of chaos in David Rabe's, Sam Shepard's, and Marsha Norman's drama. The book concludes with a look at Antonin Artaud and Tony Kushner, who both reject the "rationalist linear reirenchment" (156) typical of Western middle-class society and instead favour the idea of "[cjontrolled chaos" (151). Still, one cannot shake the impression that any other number of plays would serve Demastes's purpose just as well. The discussion of the so-called butterfly effect that the author presents in his analysis of Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder, for example, could be applied equally efficiently to many Greek tragedies , as well as to practically all of Georges Feydeau's vaudevilles. While this can, of course, mean that Demastes's method is a universal one, it could also suggest that, at least in some respects, his application of chaos theory does not accomplish much more than, say, Gustav Freytag's nineteenth-century Die Technik des Dramas [18631 with its notion of the triggering moment. When one adds to this Demastes's own admission that the notion of chaos as "a dynamic blending of disorder and order" is not particularly original and has already been known in some "premodern cultures" (xii), the methodological relevance of the whole endeavour becomes questionable. If all an application of chaos theory can do is to restate the already known with new terminology, the only heuristic value of such an attempt is in its curiosity. JURE GANTAR, DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY, HALIFAX PHILIP C. KOLIN, ed. Tennessee Williams: A Guide to Research and Pelformance . Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998. Pp. xvi, 286. $75.00. ALICE GRIFFIN. Understanding Tennessee Williams...