"The picture of a nude woman with a cut watermelon gripped between her thighs was offensive and in bad taste,'' said a statement about the ban e-mailed to the Associated Press from Singapore's Film and Publications Department.

About 5000 flyers advertising the play, Fireface, were distributed last month at the Singapore Art Museum and at discos that target adults, said Beatrice Chia, the play's 28-year-old director.

A few days later, Chia's Toy Factory Theater Ensemble was informed by Singapore's Film and Publications Department that the brochures had to be withdrawn "as soon as possible'' because there had been complaints about them from the public, Chia said.

The brochures contain five photographs of the play's cast members in provocative poses, accompanied by four doodles of breasts, feces and genitalia, Chia said.

Singapore's government is known for its strict social controls and censorship. Plays with sexual or violent content are slapped with a "restricted artistic'' or R(A) rating, which prohibits children under 18 from viewing them.

The flyers were intentionally graphic in keeping with the play's themes of dysfunctional families, incest, pyromania and necrophilia, said Chia.

Chia, who is also an actress, said she thought she had the right to display her brochures since they did not contain frontal nudity. - AP

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