The pandemic did a lot of things to the citizens of the world in the early years, the least of which was take thousands of lives. Those who remained in those initial months and years dealt with physical isolation, financial uncertainty, and a trepidation over whether things would ever look the same. In January of 2021, during London’s third lockdown, friends and out-of-work actors Sam Crane (We Are Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On) and Mark Oosterveen played within the virtual world of Rockstar Games’s Grand Theft Auto (GTA) Online, a space wherein they could interact together without the fears of spreading disease. When they stumble upon an outdoor amphitheater, a kernel of an idea forms: what if they put on a play within the game? Would it be possible given the limitations of emoting, inconsistent modular tech among players, the possibility of randos attacking them as they attempt dialogue, and any number of other unthought-of problems? The answer is yes. Difficult, unwieldy, and absolutely the first of its kind, but yes. Having its world premiere during SXSW 2024 is Grand Theft Hamlet, co-directed by Pinny Grylls (Peter and Ben) and Sam, providing a comedic look at theater production in a space built only for madness and imagination, making it the perfect place to put on a play.
A still from documentary GRAND THEFT HAMLET. Photo courtesy of SXSW.
Unconventional to say the least, utilizing the inside of a video game’s virtual world has been used enough by storytellers to have created a specific term: machinima. Typically, machinima productions are fictional narratives using a game’s tools to create something new. This is Rooster Teeth utilizing the various Halo games to produce multiple seasons of Red vs. Blue (2003 – Current). This is documentary Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator (2008) made entirely in the virtual world of Second Life. Of course, there’s also the time South Park went for it in “Make Love, Not Warcraft” where they worked with gaming company Blizzard to create their Season 10 (2006) eighth episode. In each of these cases, the use of the virtual space is about making something new within the space, often transforming its intentional meaning into something unexpected. Though Rooster Teeth is shutting down as of 2024, the decades-old organization has had such an impact that references to Halo often come in the form of RvB references. Here, however, what Gryllis and Crane capture is something else. These actors aren’t seeking to transform the virtual landscape of GTA Online into the world of Denmark, rather, to paraphrase the Bard’s As You Like It, they seek to make this whole world the stage upon which these players will make their exits and entrances, dodging gunfire, mortars, trolls, and game physics the whole way.
As a result, Grand Theft Hamlet is a production film, meaning, that the whole of it is the same as any fiction or non-fiction narrative about trying to get a production of any kind off the ground. Can they find actors? Can they find resources? Locations, costumes, and advertising? Will the press attend? All of these things are fairly typical of a production film with the twist that everything the audience sees in Grand Theft Hamlet takes place within the GTA Online space, thereby bringing with it specific challenges that must be overcome or turned into advantages. It’s in the process that something is revealed to the viewing audience and, here, it’s a collection of things: the importance of community, the craving for connection in isolation, the power of the internet for good, and sometimes art for art’s sake transforming the mundane into profundity. While it’s legitimately hilarious to see the initial auditions interrupted by a rando looking to score points within the game by murdering someone or to see the cast members utilize weapons to burn Gonzago as they rehearse the play-within-the-play segment of Act 3, Scene 2, there’s a flip side to this when a person auditioning to participate states how they’ve longed to act but haven’t had the chance, kills the audition, and then the next time they’re in the game, it’s their nephew who’s taken his profile back because the person had to travel for work. Sure, the characters we’re following are strictly avatars, yet their real voices ground them so that we never forget they aren’t NPCs reading practiced dialogue. These are individuals who are trying something that’s never been tried before (performing a play live within a virtual space) with, essentially, a group of volunteers possessing a similar drive to make history. Though this entire endeavor is really about forging connection and taking positive action at a time when everything around them seems hopeless and isolating. This is the emotional center for the film, especially as, with as much patience as one can muster for someone less familiar with GTA, Grylls captures testimony from both Sam and Mark about their current lives: one who is giving up a great deal of time with his actual family for this project and the other who has no other family and longs for it. Underneath the avatars and wild dream exists two men with different stories and coping mechanisms, each seeing the GTA project as the salve for their respective problems and not realizing that what they think they are getting from it is creating a deficit all its own.
What’s particularly interesting is the ways in which the tools of documentary storytelling make the world of GTA Online a bit more somber and infused with poignancy when crosscut with the words of Shakespeare as performed by the cast. The limitations of emoting and movement do bring about a certain silliness, absolutely, but one finds themselves being strangely moved beyond the regular philosophical examination that “To Be or Not To Be” can bring about via a strong performance when the *ideas* of that soliloquy are heard while Grylls focuses the in-game camera on a variety of NPCs and landscapes, as one might turn the camera on the regular people who live their lives in the same spaces where the production is produced. Without warning, one begins to consider whether existence within the game is something possible. Not as in “we humans living within a digital space as a replacement for reality,” but a deeper question about whether or not the NPCs within the world of GTA Online deserve, by the same questions we ask ourselves about existence and whether we’re worthy of life and free will, to be given equal rights and considerations. So often games that feature NPCs make it so that these NPCs are treated as disposable, capable of sustaining damage, injury, or even death — viewed as a feature of play, not a bug. Upon the efforts of Sam and Mark, with the presentation by Grylls, NPCs are treated the same by anyone who doesn’t have a vested interest in what they seek to achieve. Is it better to live and face the slings and arrows of existence or to dream no more? Put another way, do the NPCs exist or are they subjects of code and therefore any meaning placed upon them through artistic design is negated? Within the space of GTA Online, would the game fare better if NPCs were treated the same as living, breathing characters, or would that somehow break the game? Intentionally or not, Grylls’s direction and editing create the opportunity to question all of it, elevating things to a level unexpected.
There’s no better catalyst for creativity than necessity. When one feels absolutely pushed, it may be messy, it may be imperfect, but it’ll be entirely of their own making through the act of having to improvise solutions. Though machinima is widespread enough to have its own genre title in storytelling, no one’s done something like what Sam and Mark attempt, and I don’t think they expected this small idea to bloom into something as creative, as meaningful, or as hilariously inventive as it is. Thankfully, Grylls does capture enough of the actual performance that we can see how a few of the obstacles during the pre-production and rehearsal process work out, enabling us to see the good and the bad with it. Admittedly, this reviewer would’ve loved to have seen more as both a former literature major in undergrad and a video game nerd, but what we get speaks volumes to the efforts of the showrunners, performers, and the characters within GTA Online who become part of the crew. Even as the pandemic continues and the concerns of isolation remain for many, Grand Theft Hamlet may just inspire others to take a chance with the medium of their choosing to make art. You never know what you’ll create or discover in the process.
Screened during SXSW 2024.
For more information, head to the official Grand Theft Hamlet SXSW webpage or documentary website.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
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