Grand Theft Hamlet chronicles two actors' ambitious attempt to stage Shakespeare's Hamlet within the chaotic world of Grand Theft Auto Online during the Covid-19 pandemic. While exploring the intersection of theater and video games, the documentary highlights the enduring appeal of Shakespeare's stories and the human desire for community found in both art forms.
Grand Theft Hamlet Score Details “Grand Theft Hamlet is too busy pitting high art against low art to take advantage of the communal power shared by games and theater.” Pros Cons Table of Contents There is a reason the plays of William Shakespeare continue to hold such cultural currency over 400 years after the writer’s death. His stories — stretched across histories, comedies, and tragedies — are achingly relatable portrayals of the human experience in all its facets.
Anyone can act The opening of Grand Theft Hamlet sees out of work actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen in the middle of a session of Grand Theft Auto Online. While fleeing from the cops — the entire documentary is shot in-game — the two stumble upon the Vinewood Bowl, a large open-air amphitheater.
Even these poignant moments come with the drawbacks of being in a lawless public forum like Grand Theft Auto. Weapons go off, actors accidentally kill each other midline, and eventually the cops show up to ruin it all. This is the major juxtaposition Grand Theft Hamlet constantly leans into. A meeting of high and low art, and how comedic it is to see actors get blown to high heaven. Crane and Oosterveen claim early on that this replicates a true Shakespeare experience in many ways.
Crane and Oosterveen are actors, and you can feel them punching up their dialogue in these moments about the “real-world.” While the work of Shakespeare helps to break down the uncanny valley of the digital world, these scenes do the opposite. They pull me back to the auditions in which players carefully prepared their emotes and actions to reflect their words.
That doesn’t seem to be the takeaway for Crane and Oosterveen however. With Hamlet successfully performed in game and lockdown’s being lifted the two look forward to life back in the real-world, at which point their artistic and communal adventures within Grand Theft Auto Online will likely come to an end. It reads almost as a reminder to get outside and touch grass.
VIDEO GAMES THEATER DOCUMENTARY SHAKEASPERE COVID-19
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