How do you stage a Shakespeare play in the middle of a global pandemic? British actor Sam Crane wasn’t sure, but he knew he was tired of looking at Zoom screens. His determination to find a creative outlet without falling prey to soulless pandemic tropes led him to mount his own production of “Hamlet” within the sprawling virtual world of “Grand Theft Auto Online” — a very different kind of screen.
His creative process — from casting actors whose faces he never saw to having his avatar shot by internet strangers during rehearsals — is the subject of “Grand Theft Hamlet,” a documentary he co-directed with his partner Pinny Grylls. Shot entirely within the video game, “Grand Theft Hamlet” is a portrait of artists struggling to balance their craft with their personal life in trying times. The film won the Documentary Jury Award at SXSW 2024, and will receive a theatrical release from MUBI in January 2025.
In an interview with IndieWire, Grylls and Crane reflected on the unique experience of trying to conduct private rehearsals within a public game.
“It’s as challenging as it would have been when Shakespeare was putting on a new production at the Globe,” Grylls said. “He didn’t know if people were gonna like his new play ‘Romeo & Juliet’ or ‘Hamlet.’ People would probably come along and be selling apples, and if people didn’t like [the actors] they’d throw them at them. And that’s sort of where we were at. These guys didn’t care, they hadn’t paid $100 for a ticket. If they thought we were shit, they were just gonna walk off or shoot us or throw something at us. And I liked that, because it was the ultimate test.”
“Grand Theft Hamlet” received largely positive reviews from critics, with IndieWire’s David Ehrlich writing that “few pandemic films have better expressed the desperation to connect with a world full of people who might say ‘you are bitch’ and shoot you in the face whenever you try to reach out. In fact, I’d argue that none of them have.”
MUBI will release “Grand Theft Hamlet” in theaters on Friday, January 17. Watch the trailer below.
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