Chapter 4, Poetics of the Oppressed, Poetics of the Oppressed and Experiments with People's Theater in Peru, pages 121-130 Summary and Analysis

In "Poetics of the Oppressed", Boal paints a picture of the history of theater beginning with cooperative, communal celebration, which is usurped by ruling classes, which divide the theater into audience and players, and the players into protagonists and the masses. He states that these walls must be torn down in the "Joker" System of theater.

In People's Theater in Peru, Boal tells of a literacy campaign in Peru called Operación Alfabetización Integral, or ALFIN, begun in 1973 by the revolutionary government to eliminate illiteracy within four years. The problem was made more difficult by the existence of at least 45 languages and many dialects, and the...