Fans of the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series will be able to witness Grand Theft Hamlet in theaters in early 2025. Shot entirely in the online world of GTA’s latest installment, Grand Theft Hamlet is an attempt to perform one of the world’s best-known plays inside the worldwide video gaming phenomenon Grand Theft Auto V (GTAV).
Two out-of-work actors, Mark Oosterveen and Sam Crane, struggling through the COVID lockdowns, found a way to persist throughout the pandemic. While playing GTAV online, they discovered a theater stage in the heart of San Andreas, the fictional city that plays host to GTAV’s wild cast of unhinged murderers, thieves and drug-dealers.
A clip on YouTube shows the two actors open their stage performance on solid ground only to be sabotaged moments later when two audience members begin shooting at each other. All-consuming violence gives way to hilarious Shakespearean antics as the cops arrive. The stage duo continues their performance while evading arrest until one or both of them are “wasted,” meaning their in-game characters suffer a fatal blow.
The marriage between the online world of gaming and traditional theater produced a film that not only inspires laughter but poses a stimulating set of questions. Per the film’s website, the production sought to answer, “What is this space? How do we use it now, and what else is possible inside it? Can we transport this ancient story inside a brand new one? And will it make sense?”
SSU professor Ann Linden teaches a course in mass communication that I’m privileged to be a part of myself. The semester is ongoing, but as her student, I’ve learned about the very inception of the idea of media, as well as its evolution into the massive multi-faceted form we know today. She offered valuable insight into this new amalgamation of media — a traditional play inside a modern video game, soon to be shown in cinema.
Considering the idea for Grand Theft Hamlet came from two out-of-work actors, Linden offered the following insight: “Theater has struggled as an art form for the last 130 years because the minute film hit the atmosphere, it was immediate competition. And then you get television, now we have streaming and video games, there’s so much competition that only the big Broadway productions can keep up.”
Linden completed her dissertation on a Pulitzer-prize winning playwright who could not find a job in his field and worked as a professor, instead. Even prior to the outbreak of COVID, the best minds in theater were struggling to find work. Needless to say, a pandemic was not in the repertoire of problems traditional theater was prepared to face on top of harsh competition.
“It’s really interesting to see live theater incorporated into a video game and what it may mean for the future of theater and gaming,” Linden said, instilling some hope for traditional theater to yet prevail.
“The one compelling thing that theater has over its competition is that it’s live,” she said, listing examples such as an actor flubbing their lines or a light flickering when it’s not supposed to. “But a video game can capture that live quality in an online setting — in that anything can happen.”
The rights to Grand Theft Hamlet are owned by MUBI, a global streaming platform known for its arthouse-style films. Grand Theft Hamlet premiered this year at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival in Austin, Texas, where it won the documentary feature jury award. It was then screened in the U.K. at the British Film Institute (BFI) London Film Festival on Oct. 15, followed by a special presentation on BFI Imax on Oct. 20. The film’s U.S. release is scheduled for early 2025, with specific details soon to be announced.
