There are, at a minimum, and I checked, 18 bazillion adaptations of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” It’s one of the most beloved and scrutinized texts in the whole of the English language.
More actors than anyone can count — strike that, I guess there’ve been 18 bazillion — have put their stamp on this 425-year-old play about a prince and his revenge against his conspiring, murderous uncle. The words “to be or not to be” are emblazoned within the global lexicon, preserving forever Shakespeare’s complex thoughts about ending one’s own life, as generation after generation of performers and directors put their own stamp on perhaps the most well-worn dramatic material humanity has.
But I’ve never seen a “to be or not to be” speech quite like the one in “Grand Theft Hamlet.” It is now a speech about life spoken to lifeless automatons, frequently interrupted by real-life jerks who murder the actor mid-speech. Half absurd, half profound. That’s what you get for staging a Shakespearean play within the confines of “Grand Theft Auto Online,” a multiplayer game where the players undertake exciting criminal missions or, just as often, screw around and shoot each other in the face with rockets and attack jets.
The year was 2021, and like many, actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen were out of work, locked away in their homes, and going a little mad north-north-west. While living vicariously through their online avatars, they stumbled across an area of San Andreas — the game’s cheeky stand-in for Southern California — they had never seen before. A giant amphitheater, exactly the sort of venue an actor dreams of headlining. And they consider, perchance, the possibility of staging a production within the game, since live performances were no longer possible due to the lockdown and COVID precautions.
“Grand Theft Hamlet” is a plucky underdog story — a modern, cartoonishly violent version of Mickey Rooney declaring, “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” They’re not trying to save orphans from a workhouse or protect their beloved community center from being gentrified by mean Mr. Douglas; they’re just filling a void in their lives, simultaneously embracing and rejecting the options provided for them by escapist entertainment. Instead of following the expectations of Rockstar Games and unbridling their darkest ids in a seedy underworld, they use “GTA Online” as a canvas to create something powerful and beautiful. The only difference is it’s with attack jets and a badass blimp scene, because they might as well work with what they’ve got.
Directed by Sam Crane and documentarian Pinny Grylls, “Grand Theft Hamlet” can’t help but enthrall us. The film exists in an impersonal world that becomes increasingly and clumsily personal, because the film never leaves a digital environment. Crane and Grylls, who are married, have prolonged arguments over the amount of time he’s spending on this online production of “Hamlet,” occasionally accosted by annoying NPCs. At one point, Crane, extremely lonely, says he wishes he could give his wife a hug. That’s when she reminds him that he can. After all, they live in the same house.
When you’re putting on a show, that show becomes your whole life. Especially when you didn’t have a life to begin with. There are inevitable moments when impracticalities overwhelm these actors and they debate whether to shelve the whole project, but those decisions have great weight because your actors, at least some of them, have literally nothing else in their lives right now. They have no other friends or family to interact with. They just have gaming and, now, artistic creation as their outlet.
Crane and Oosterveen are not alone. They hold auditions in San Andreas for their production, which leads to frequent accidental murders and police interventions. They enlist some first-time actors — and at least one other professional, Jen Cohn, the voice of Pharah in “Overwatch” — and gradually attract some other randos who unofficially join the team, either by quietly turning up wherever they’re scouting locations or by working as their unofficial security, murdering other nearby players before anyone can interrupt rehearsals by, again, murdering. They’re the rowdiest possible equivalent of the rabble at the old Globe Theater, chucking rotten vegetables at the players they don’t like and rushing the stage to join the sword fights.
Life, and theater, and video games — they are what we make of them. The absurd profundity of “Grand Theft Hamlet” speaks to our wonderful human ability to express ourselves. We make something out of nothing. We find meaning in that which seems meaningless. If there is one disappointing element of this moving, amusing, sad and memorable film it’s that it isn’t five hours long. Because we don’t see their final production of “Hamlet” in its entirety, just a broad overview of its highlights and its hilarious accidental tragedies.
One suspects that the play could have been a movie unto itself. The play is, after all, the thing.
