what dreams may come indeed

@GenericArchangel  
Being somewhat of a purist when it comes to literature, I respectfully disagree with your stance.  
While I admit that it is within the rights of theater directors to reimagine a classical play in the paradigm of their own times, I consider it more important to educate the audience and challenge their preconceptions than to accomodate pop-cultural osmosis and its memetic interferences (plus I’d expect at least part of the audience for Hamlet to be a little more familiar about its contents than the average layman — for which, if asked about that play, the first line of the aforementioned monologue and the fact that there’s supposed to be a skull in there will constitute the total sum of their knowledge —, or at least to know that, against popular belief, both of those aspects occur in two separate acts).

@Nightweaver20xx  

 
This

The description really sells this joke 100%.

Haha rub.

@Cyborg_pony  
Remember, there’s only one letter difference between “poot” and “poet.”

@Ereiam  
Perhaps. But popular remembrance matters, and if the audience expects the skull in this scene, it’s the scene where the skull will have the most impact.

@GenericArchangel  
It would be, but introducing a skull as a random prop in that scene (which furthermore takes place in a room of Elsinore Castle, where its presence would be more out of place than in the churchyard of act 5) would diminish the impact of the later scene where the skull is actually adressed methinks.

There’s no reason Hamlet can’t hold a skull while reflecting on killing himself. It’s thematically appropriate.

Darn that Screenplay Kirin.
 
Calling out TJ for being such a poot about not knowing about Shakespeare!