Designed to show that highly participatory, engaging, entertaining, and locally understandable communication forms can be used not only to liberate but also to domesticate, this paper presents case studies of several nonformal education projects in Botswana that attempted to follow the approach of Paulo Freire by using popular theatre to encourage participation, raise issues, foster discussion, and promote collective action. Topics include "Laedza Batanani," the first experiment using theater for nonformal education in Botswana; popular theatre and resettlement education; popular theater and Freirian literacy work; and participatory research, puppetry, and appropriate technology. A systematic analysis of the issues involved clarifies earlier writing on the subject which failed to portray some of the key contradictions in this work and tended to mystify the popular base of this activity. Focus is on the pseudo-participatory nature of the program; the involvement of the villagers as actors, audience, and discussion members without allowing popular control over the process; and the direction of change. The dual potential of popular theatre is clarified--i.e., its capacity for authentic popular expression and raising critical class consciousness, and/or for disseminating dominant class ideas and inducing acceptance of the status quo. Fourteen references are listed. (LMM)