"There's some speculation that that mightn't have been the real reason. Because the play does depict police authority well and truly overstepping its mark, which is a sensitive issue here in China at the moment," he added.

The play's director Joe Graves, an American who heads Peking University's Institute of World Theatre and Film, said foreign plays had to be approved by censorship boards at national, state, city and municipal district levels. Each board could have vetoed the festival production, but Graves did not know which had.

China's Ministry of Culture referred requests for comment to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture, which it said was responsible for approving plays. An official at the municipal bureau's department in charge of examining and approving productions who provided only her surname, Yao, said she knew nothing about the Australian play.

Graves said he had submitted more than 150 foreign plays to Chinese censors during his 17 years in Beijing and only a dozen had been rejected.

"I was surprised that that play was censored," Graves said. "My gut feeling is that the police brutality" was the reason, he added. "Police brutality has been widely in the news here with some really disturbing incidents in small towns where police were taking advantage."

Graves said he would have found out the specific reason through an appeal if he had more notice, but the censor's decision was made only two weeks ago.

Williamson said Tuesday's performance could have led to a run of performances in China.

Another of his classic plays, The Club, was brought to China in 2002 and ran intermittently for a year. Williamson noted that The Club, a 1977 satire about a Melbourne Australian Rules Football team contained "a little bit of salty language too".

AP