Two out of work actors stage a production of Hamlet in the world of Grand Theft Auto.
My relationship with Grand Theft Auto is virtually nil. I have never played any version of the popular video game—this is not a badge of honor I am pinning to my chest; the video game bug, like the comic book bug was one that never bit me. My closest relationship to it is the essay “Grand Theft” by Tom Bissell in which he discusses a three-year addiction to video games and cocaine (the video game of prominence was the Grand Theft Auto series). Just because I have no interest in playing video games like GTA, doesn’t mean I’m not interested in what can be done with them—or how they can be examined and analyzed through the lens of storytelling, socioeconomics, feminism…or any other critical lens. So, when a film like Grand Theft Hamlet shows up, I’m willing, despite my lack of familiarity, to see where it takes me.
Grand Theft Hamlet: Altitude Films
The film drops us in to the middle of two friends, Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, remotely playing Grand Theft Auto. It’s January, 2021. The UK has entered its 3rd lockdown. Sam and Mark are actors; the theaters are all closed. Sam and Mark each experience their own kind of anxiety. Mark lives alone and is isolated; Sam is worrying about how to support his family. There is a bit of solace in meeting in the game-world, a chance to connect and feel connected. We don’t see their faces—and the voices we hear are filtered through the microphones of gaming headsets. What we get are their avatars exploring the world of the game: stealing cars, fleeing from the cops, assaulting or killing other random players. The film is a piece of machinima: the use of real-time computer graphics to create a cinematic production. The film does not attempt verisimilitude as much as it does simulation.
While playing the game, the two friends come a cross an amphitheater and jokingly launch into soliloquy on stage. They joke about staging Shakespeare…then the joke stops becoming a joke and turns into the questions of what if? why not? what would it look like if we were to do Hamlet? Because I’m not a gamer, because I don’t keep up with the ways in which this kind of digital reality has progressed, I had no idea this could be done. And there is the hook for me: watching them figure out just how in the hell they’re going to pull this off.
The how of it is what the movie devotes the majority of its runtime to. They scouted locations for various scenes within the GTA world. Because the game can be played with limitless players online, they held auditions. They took this seriously, and worked hard to convince others as such. They work so hard, and take this staging so seriously, that they often seem close to heartbreak and breakdown. At a certain point, Sam is confronted by his wife Pinny (the film’s co-director) through the game—such is his devotion or obsession that this is the only place she can get his attention. Mark, after venting frustration at not being able to work, feeling isolated and alone, fades into the background of the movie, taking on the role of director of the play.
In the end, the play is a success, and all the actors deserve their applause. Grand Theft Hamlet is a poignant, entertaining documentary that does well to swerve from sentimentality. It is a thoughtful examination of cross-disciplinary creative construction mashed with existential examination. A film within a film, a world within a world that should continue to provoke all of us to ask, in our own way, what if?