"I was given a very firm warning and told not to do it again," said S. Thenmoli, who heads the Agni Kootthu theater group. A police news release said Thenmoli was given "a stern warning in lieu of prosecution."

Thenmoli was arrested on Oct 28 after trying to hold a rehearsal of the play. She was released shortly afterward on US$1176 bail and told to report back to the police station two weeks later. No charges were brought against her.

The government in a statement said the ban was necessary because artistic works must "respect religious sensitivities in multiracial and multi-religious Singapore."

Thenmoli's arrest followed a four-hour standoff with police at the Drama Center where her theater group planned to hold the rehearsal after being barred from staging a performance, public or private.

Talaq which loosely translated means divorce, tells the story about the miserable marriage and divorce of an ethnic Indian Muslim woman named Banu. The tale, written by Thenmoli's playwright husband Elangovan, has outraged some local Indian Muslims.

Singapore's Indian Muslim community makes up about one percent of the country's total population of 3.2 million, which is around 77 percent ethnic Chinese. Most Muslims in the wealthy city-state are Malay and the majority of Indians are Hindu.

The ban only applied to the English and Malay language versions of the play. The play's Tamil version has already been staged in Singapore.