BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 17 — Over the next three months, the Lebanese artist Rabih Mroué will stage his new performance piece in Paris, Rome and the capitals of Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt. But he will not present it here, for the audience with whom it might resonate most.

This week, an Interior Ministry censorship board banned performances of the piece, “How Nancy Wished That Everything Was an April Fool’s Joke,” which was to have received its premiere this weekend.

For Mr. Mroué, the outright ban is a first. And he says it bodes ill for an art scene that gestated during a period of precarious peace but is now squeezed by the government’s fear of renewed civil war.

“The margin of freedom is getting smaller and smaller,” he said during a break from his day job as an illustrator for a Lebanese television station. “The vision is becoming so narrow, and there is no more room for different voices.”