The middle ground chaos theory secures among other gigantic scientific theories to describe the world has brought it to the fore lately. It neither declines the Newtonian clockwork model completely nor promotes the quantum indeterministic model entirely. It preaches that the world is both ordered and disordered, and man is both bound and free. Unlike relativity and quantum physics, it is neither busy with massive objects nor preoccupied with tiny ones, the atoms. It simply works in between, our world. Thus, it spreads and is widely utilised in a variety of disciplines, including literary and cultural domains. Conversely, Theatre de Complicité promotes nonlinearity and fragmentation for structure, and physicality and visual imagery for performance. It does not prefer pre-written texts rather favours devising its own through a lengthy process of improvising and rehearsing. It believes that the world is no longer a world of a single story. It cannot be encompassed within one philosophy or viewpoint. Mnemonic and A Disappearing Number suggest human body within the context of origin as a collective identity, and math within the context of infinity as a path for eternity. Hence, chaos theory is deemed to be the appropriate choice for analysis as it can provide an avenue of escape from the soul-crushing mechanical view of the world dominated most critical approaches for decades and can also furnish an alternative language and scope for literary interpretation.

Keywords: chaos theory; butterfly effect; strange attractors; recursive symmetry; nonlinearity and fragmentation

Achachelooei, E. M. (2016). The God-Human Relationship in Octavia Butler’s “The Book of Martha.” GEMA Online® Journal of Language Studies. Vol. 16(3), 129-143.

Alonso, M. (1990). Organisation and Change in Complex Systems. New York: Paragon House.

Argyros, A (1991). A Blessed Rage for Order: Deconstruction, Evolution, and Chaos. University of Michigan Press.

Arons, M., Richards, R. & Bugental, J. F. T. (2014). Two Noble Insurgencies: Creativity and Humanistic Psychology. In Kirk J. Schneider, J. Fraser Pierson and James F. T. Bugental. (Eds.), The Handbook of Humanistic Psychology: Theory, Research, and Practice. (pp. 161-176). London: SAGE Publications.

Barr, K. S. (2006). Science on Stage: From Doctor Faustus to Copenhagen. Princeton University Press.

Bishop, R. C. (2008). What Could Be Worse than the Butterfly Effect? Canadian Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 38(4), 519-547.

Briggs, J. & Peat, F. D. (1990). Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholeness. New York: Harper & Row.

Butz, M. R. (1993). Practical Applications from Chaos Theory to the Psychotherapeutic Process, a Basic Consideration of Dynamics. Psychological Reports. Vol. 73(2), 543-554.

---. (1992). Chaos, an Omen of Transcendence in the Psychotherapeutic Process. Psychological Reports PR. Vol. 71(7), 827-843.

Cambel, A. B. (1993). Applied Chaos Theory: A Paradigm for Complexity. New York: Academic Press, Inc.

Campos, L. (2014). This Is Not a Chair: Complicite's Master and Margarita. New Theatre Quarterly. Vol. 30(2), 175-182.

---. (2013). Science in Contemporary British Theatre: A Conceptual Approach. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews. Vol. 38(4), 295-305.

Casado-Gual, N. (2012). Pre-dicting the Past, Re-membering the Present: Theorizing Memory in Complicite's Mnemonic. New Theatre Quarterly. Vol. 28(2), 182-188.

Freshwater, Helen. (2001). The Ethics of Indeterminacy: Theatre De Complicite's ‘Mnemonic’. New Theatre Quarterly. Vol. 17(3), 212-218.

Galatzer-Levy, R. M. (1995). Psychoanalysis and Dynamical Systems Theory: Prediction and Self Similarity. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Vol. 43(4), 1085-1114.

Gillespie, M. P. (2008). The Aesthetics of Chaos: Nonlinear Thinking and Contemporary Literary Criticism. University of Florida Press.

Gleick, J. (1987). Chaos: Making of a New Science. New York: Penguin Group.

Gritzner, K. (2011). Spirit to Ashes, Performance to Dust: Derrida, Theatre De Complicite, and the Question of a “Holy Theatre.” Performance and Spirituality. Vol. 2(1), 85-110.

Hamdan, S. A. (2011). Human Subjectivity and Technology in Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon. 3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature. Vol. 17(Special Issue), 121-132.

Hardy, G. H. (1967). A Mathematician’s Apology. Cambridge University Press.

Hawkins, H. (1995). Strange Attractors: Literature, Culture and Chaos Theory. New York: Prentice Hall.

Hayles, N. K. (1991). Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science. In N.k. Hayles (Ed.), Chaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science. (pp.1-33). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

---. (1990). Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Haynes, R. D. (2014).Whatever Happened to the ‘Mad, Bad’ Scientist? Overturning the Stereotype." SAGE Journals. Vol. 1(45), 1-14.

Hickie, R. J. (2008). Scenography as Process in British Devised and Postdramatic Theatre. (Doctoral Dissertation). Retrieved from https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/handle/2134/12660

Hunter, M. (2005). Theatrical Wonder. (Doctoral Dissertation). Retrieved from https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/1578

Kellert, S. H. (1994). In the Wake of Chaos: Unpredictable Order in Dynamical Systems. The University of Chicago Press.

Lorenz, E. N. (1995). The Essence of Chaos. U.K: UCL Press Limited.

Loye, D., & Eisler, R. (1987). Chaos and Transformation: Implications of Nonequilibrium Theory for Social Science and Society. Behavioral Science. Vol. 32(1), 53-65.

Porush, D. (1991). Prigogine, Chaos, and Contemporary Science Fiction. Science Fiction Studies. Vol. 18(3), 367-86.

Prigogine, L. & Stengers, I. (1984). Order Out of Chaos: Man’s New Dialogue with Nature. Bantam Books.

Reinelt, J. (2001). Performing Europe: Identity Formation for a "New" Europe. Theatre Journal. Vol. 53(3), 365-387.

Rossi, E. L. (1989). Archetypes as Strange Attractors. Psychological Perspectives: A Quarterly Journal of Jungian Thought. Vol. 20(1), 4-15.

Ruelle, D. (1991). Chance and Chaos. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Stewart, I. (2002). Does God Play Dice? The New Mathematics of Chaos. USA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Stone, R. (2008). A Disappearing Number (Review). Theatre Journal. Vol. 60(3), 489-491.

Svyantek, D. J. & DeShon, R. P. (1993). Organisational Attractors: A Chaos Theory Explanation of Why Cultural Change Efforts often Fail. Public Administration Quarterly. Vol. 17(3), 339-355.

Theatre de Complicite. (2007). A Disappearing Number. London: Oberon Book.

---. Mnemonic. (1999). GB: Methuen Drama.

Thelen, E. (2014). Self-Organisation in Developmental Processes: Can Systems Approaches Work? In Megan R. Gunnar & Esther Thelen (Eds.), Systems and Development: The Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology Vol.22. (pp. 77-117). New York: Psychology Press.

Wheatley, M. J. (1992). Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organisation from an Orderly Universe. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Wright, R. (1988). Did the Universe Just Happen? The Atlantic Monthly. Vol. 261(4), 29-44.