Grand Theft Hamlet: a play inside a video game? Madness, but there’s method in it

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. Seeking a way to put on a show during a pandemic-induced lockdown that’s driving them stir crazy, Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen hit on the idea of setting a production of Hamlet entirely within the world of the Grand Theft Auto video game. Digital avatars deliver soliloquies while besieged by virtual gunfire, the entire cast dies mid-show after accidentally falling off a blimp – and Shakespeare’s play about performance and madness finds renewed resonance.

Grand Theft Hamlet wrings a surprising quantity of comedy from one of Shakespeare’s most tragic plays, most of it unintentional. The violence inherent to Grand Theft Auto leads to an early test run being interrupted when a virtual audience member launches a rocket at the stage. “If I could just request that you refrain from killing each other,” Crane dryly intones. Another performer’s stirring monologue is juxtaposed against her avatar’s lack of pants.

But the film locates honesty within this artificial world. A visual of Sam, alone at the railway station where his lead actor has just announced that he’s dropping out, captures what it’s like to feel stuck in place as life moves on.

Hamlet is about people pretending to be something they’re not; but the GTA version is perversely revealing: we may not know what the actors look like until the very end, but we know what’s haunting them. The play’s plot doesn’t matter much, here, and Shakespeare’s words find poignant (re)interpretation. “To be or not to be” speech becomes a means for Oosterveen to consider whether, after repeated setbacks, this play should die a dignified death.

Though their avatars have only limited expressions, the players’ voices summon a depth of feeling. They mine stock actions to great effect, pacing up and down in torment or drawing a line across their throat as a threat. And despite its many pitfalls, work on the play becomes joyous and playful. There’s nothing particularly striking about the contrasting in-game blues of the sky and Earth but a player’s awe at viewing the horizon from his vantage point atop a blimp conveys the exhilaration of a production without physical limits.

The final performance is far from seamless, but the snafus make it all the more endearing. As the sun rises over the performers at the end, it seems to represent a new beginning for two actors who pulled themselves out of stagnation and infused new life into a classic work along the way.

► Grand Theft Hamlet arrives in UK cinemas 6 December.