After seeing a performance of Hamlet at Stratford-upon-Avon, Andre Tchaikowsky, a Polish pianist, was so taken by the gravedigger scene with Hamlet holding the skull of Yorick that he told his friend that when he died he was going to leave his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company to use in its future productions of the play. Alas, poor Andre, his last wish, to appear as Yorick, has not been all that he might have wanted.

In 1982, when Mr. Tchaikowsky was 46, he died of cancer. Soon after, the Royal Shakespeare Theater Company’s property manager opened a cardboard box sent to him by a Mr. Duckworth from an Oxford, England, funeral home. Out from the box rolled the cranium of a deceased client, Andre Tchaikowsky, along with a note saying it was his dying wish that they use it in Hamlet. The property manger was horrified. The artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, however, was beguiled by the bequest and had Tchaikowsky’s skull added to the property department’s inventory.

Mr. Tchaikowsky’s attempt to gain an on-stage immortality of sorts was thwarted by a string of squeamish Hamlets who demurred at using real human remains as a prop. Consequently, the skull sat on a shelf in the prop room for several years. A plastic understudy continued to be used until just recently, when, without letting the audience in on the fun, an actor named David Tennant agreed to use the real thing in 22 performances of Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Now Tennant and the Stratford production have moved to London’s West End. Unfortunately for the late Mr. Tchaikowsky, the play’s director says that since Tennant spilled the beans that he’d been using the real thing, the skull would now create an unwanted audience distraction. The plastic replica is back on stage in the London production and Mr. Tchaikovsky’s skull is back on the prop-room shelf in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Mr.Tchaikowsky’s desire to avoid, at least in part, Hamlet’s dilemma of not knowing what happens to us after death must still be somewhat satisfied. He did play Yorick for a while, and now, even back in the prop room, he continues in show business. It is, after all, Stratford-upon-Avon, for heaven’s sake.

Sometimes there can be too much reality, even in art, as when John Barrymore, who appeared in more than a few Shakespearian plays, was asked if he thought Romeo and Juliet had actually engaged in physical love. Barrymore thought for a moment and said, “Well, I know they did in the Chicago company.”

—Truman Taylor (TrumanBTaylor@ aol.com)