Later, he explained the reason why he'd considered not performing was because of the risk of political censure:
Lin Htet: But this is how I respond in a sociopolitical situation as an artist. So whatever the consequences, I don’t really care.
Lin Htet: This indeed reflects the fact that everything is political. You cannot say this is political art or this is political. Because once you are involved in any contemporary art production, this is political.
Lin Htet: It seems like only Aung San Suu Kyi and a few other high-profile politicians have got the right to say what they want to say. For the rest of us, I don’t know.
Lin Htet: In my opinion to be abel to create you have to be outside, to be able to be more active. So this is the thing as most performance artists have to consider whenever we want to do actions. I’m not really sure in terms of rules or regulations if things are really changing. And I’m not really sure if I’m safe enough to talk about all these things.
And yet we've seen his Hotel Reverie plays, where he employs political prisoners in roles. (The conversation seemed much more graceful in the original Hamlet, when no translation was necessary.)
Lin Htet:As an artist I believe you have to somehow take responsibility because if you want to respond to what is happening around you, what is happening in society, if you want to make your voice heard, you have to take risks, responsibility.
What I have done so far is confronting my own fear and pushing myself to see how far I can go.
...
I really like repetition. All that has been happening around me is just repetition, all the cycle of power struggle, revenge. In all my works, the repetition is very important to me personally.